Navigating the Economic Data Blackout: What’s Next for the Fed?

Let's get to the big story breakdown.

While Wall Street higher ahead of the open after a record run for US stocks.

Now investors have largely looked past the government shutdown for now, expecting it to be short-lived and unlikely to derail the AI field tech rally.

Still, the shutdown has triggered an economic data blackout, including the delayed jobs report, limiting the Fed's visibility ahead of its October rate decision.

Well, joining me on this Monday morning is Peter Tuchman, senior floor trader at Trademark.

Good morning.

Peter, well, it does look as though today is M&A Monday given what we've heard so far.

So what do you make of AMD signing that AI chip supply deal with OpenAI?

You know, I think I mentioned it last week that what you know that the CEO of SoftBank actually mentioned that Nvidia, even at the valuation, it's trading at $180 something dollars, and the incredible rise that it's had is still undervalued relative to the demand for chips and the demand for data centers that we're going to see with this AI revolution that we're having.

And then you've seen this massive.

Capex expenditure by all the larger firms like Google, Microsoft, Oracle, that huge move in Oracle was a function of its investment in AI.

So this makes perfect sense that they would do that.

Obviously they need the wherewithal and some of the infrastructure that AMD offers and so people rather than them building things from scratch, they're obviously going to start partnering up with um.

With some of the other firms that have some of that as part of their infrastructure, it makes perfect sense.

Yeah, and as we come back from the weekend, there are a lot of developments when it comes to France as well as Japan, but here in the US we're keeping an eye on what happens in the nation's capital regarding the shutdown, but without the economic data and some of the clarity.

What do you expect to see in the coming weeks ahead?

The October Fed, you know what, look, it's kind of interesting.

I mean, are they going while we are not privy to the information, you know, even though my gut is that they're obviously if they need the info they're they're going to, they're going to get what they need right in order to make the decisions that they have to make.

So you know, my, my gut is that you know the way they set the stage in the last meeting that October makes kind of perfect sense, especially with the fact that there is so much anxiety around the government shutdown, although we're not seeing it here, you know, we've often talked about the fact that There's the economy.

There's the market.

Sometimes they trade in concert, sometimes they don't.

Sometimes the market has a mind of its own.

We're seeing that there is just an absolute irrational enthusiasm around, you know, return on investment.

People are buying things that are giving them a quick return like the market, like crypto, like gold, right?

We're seeing a trading record high in Bitcoin as well as gold, as well as the markets.

The board trading at record highs, so it's almost like, you know what, we're disengaging all that other stuff.

At the end of the day, people and the market are forward looking, right, forward looking.

We're looking into 2026.

Whatever ends up happening in the last 4 months of this year, it's going to be, we're in the midst of an interest rate cutting cycle.

Whether we get one in October in the midst of the blackout, I don't know, but we surely are going to probably have one in November.

December and then we're going to have some going forward and as I think I said to you on Friday is historically within this interest rate cutting cycle when it goes on for 12 months over the last 50-60 years that we've seen this data be accumulated, the markets have been up as much as 16% year over year with that little bit with that little caveat.

So I think, you know, I think we're looking at a strong market.

Yeah, and Peter, finally, before I let you go this week, we're going to be hearing from Fed speakers as well, including Powell.

But as you mentioned, we're looking at Bitcoin Gold.

The major US stock averages all at record highs or close to those levels.

So going forward, what levels are you watching and why does it matter?

You know what they're real numbers, you know, these are thresholds, these are landmarks and so.

Any ways.

I mean, you know, when I got here, I think the Dow was trading, you know, I don't know.

I got here in 1985, so you know the Dow, right?

Well, you realize that I'm the guy who makes the hats.

Everybody should know that.

And the hat, the Dow is accelerating at such a speed.

I can't even keep up with it.

I was able to play catch up with the 46,000 hats.

I think we're Already in the 47,000 hats, you know, these are real numbers, real money being put to work, and I think people need, you know, some people say, oh, what's the big deal?

Well, it is a big deal.

You're talking about money being invested in the market.

These are huge landmark numbers and the S&P almost at 7000 is a big deal.

The Dow at 47,000 is a big deal.

Nasdaq at 23,000, gold trading at I mean, these are, these are real landmark numbers.

It's really a sign of confidence across the board and it's also a sign that people are putting their money to work, right, because it's hard.

You you would question like why am I going to, you know, invest in the market when it's trading at record highs, but if today's highs are tomorrow's lows, you know, and if you go back near history.

We've been, we've been continuously breaking through every threshold we're seeing, so people putting money to work, as I mentioned last week, quickly, $4.5 billion buy program came in on the last day of the third quarter.

Another one came in the next day.

So we are seeing money being put to work.

Well, Peter, you and I will be together once again on Friday morning.

So as always, thank you so much for.