In today’s Markets Happy Hour podcast we focus on Memes and Milestones, in a week that has been filled with news of a government shutdown in the US, landmark deals and valuations and market highs.
The US government shutdown now is reaching its 3rd day, and has been punctuated with odd bursts of meme-ing involving Sombreros and Mariachi bands as partisan shots across the bough continue. This barely called a ripple in the equity markets though, which continued to grind higher. This is in line with historical equity market resilience in the case of shutdowns, and as the chart below shows markets have generally been resilient and agnostic during these periods.
With the third quarter now in the books, the S&P has touched its 29th high of the year, while the DOW has closed at a record high for the 9th time. With the rising tide of resilience lifting all boats, even the often-neglected Small Cap index – Russell 2000, has participated in the positive momentum. As noted last week, the technical factors have been stacking up as supportive of the current market strength – notable the excess of $7 trillion in Money Market Funds and the sliding return on these funds as rates come down.
Bond markets barely took a breath from the September rate cut, and immediately started to discount in the next one, aided by a continuing slow down in jobs numbers – as confirmed by private sector ADP data that saw the US lose 32,000 jobs in September. That sent bond prices higher – again nonplussed by the shutdown shenanigans or the ongoing attempts to fire Fed governor Lisa Cook, which have now reached the supreme court. The bond market is clearly looking forward to what we deemed last week the “twilight” of Chairman Powell’s tenure and excited about the boost seems to be incoming.
Large numbers continue to dominate headlines, as markets ruminate on the investment – noted last week – by Nvidia in OpenAI ($100 bn), while OpenAI itself wrapped up a $6.5 bn share sale mainly to employees that valued it at $500 bn. Berkshire Hathaway made a $10 bn purchase of OxyChem, the first under the stewardship of the CEO elect Greg Abel, while Electronic Arts was taken private in the largest ever US buyout deal ($50 bn) by a consortium of buyers including Silver Lake and the Saudi Arabian fund PIF as well as Affinity Partners controlled by Jared Kushner. The spend on compute that seemingly insatiable demands for AI require are driving the obvious question as to whether the current pace of AI spending can be sustained, as well as concern around the interconnectedness of the various large players.
Meanwhile other geopolitical rumblings occur – the US extension of a helpline to beleaguered Argentina was once more lacking in detail, which caused further erosion of asset values there, while taking stock of tariffs revealed that the OECD expected tariffs to hit the US “hard” in 2026, while the monthly duties collected neared $30 bn, a stark rise from recent history.
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