Equities are taking a leisurely stroll and viewing the foliage after we officially hit Fall (and new record highs) in the Northern Hemisphere yesterday afternoon. Right now the S&P 500 is trading down and at the day's lows, while the equal-weight and Russell 2000 outperform. Fed Chair Powell spoke but probably made his most impactful comments at last week’s FOMC meeting, though equities weakened further as he discussed elevated levels of assets and equities. Other Fed Speak included Bowman and Bostic. Energy is the leading sector on the back of oil’s strength and Trump’s UN comments (see below). Discretionary is lagging, weighed down by Amazon weakness (-2%) as an FTC trial on unfair cancellation policy for Prime member begins. AutoZone is also trading lower following an EPS miss though sales and commentary seemed solid. Tech is also lower with Nvidia down 2% as concerns circulate again on “round-tripping” revenue with customers. There’s also weakness across the software group. Microsoft announced new cooling tech for AI chips. Vertiv and Generac are down 4-5% on the news. Flash PMIs were today’s headline data. In the US, manufacturing slipped from 53 last month to 52 but was in line with estimates (>50=expansion). Services was essentially in line as well but also fell from last month (from 54.5 to 53.9). President Trump addressed the UNGA this morning, pointing his ire at immigration and the green energy movement. Commodities are broadly higher. Brent crude is up ~2%, pushed higher by Trump’s anti-green energy commentary at the UN today. Gold and silver continue to push higher and set new records. Bitcoin and Ether bounced off earlier lows following yesterday’s crypto weakness when the crypto complex saw broad liquidations on leveraged positions but aren't doing much right now.

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