Boy, that escalated quickly

In this buzz: Inflation cools; a serge in equities; S&P; Exxon; Zuck and Elon Musk and the tech layoffs; FTX and SBF- wow, in short, Sam f-ed up; and more stock market news…

What a week. It’s hard to decide where to begin.

• Inflation cools after October CPI comes in lower than expected,
• leading to a surge in equites as investor plowed cash into the market on the hopes that the Fed will take its foot of the rate-hike pedal and only raise the Fed Funds rate 50 basis points at its next meeting.
• The S&P, which is becoming less tech dependent and more influenced by companies like energy giant Exxon, enjoyed a good week; a rarity for 2022.

Facebook and Twitter:
– FB announced substantial job cuts as Zuck admitted he made some strategic mistakes in betting on the Metaverse,
– and Elon was just being Elon. You know, firing tons of people, announcing everyone else needed to be back in the office and then trying to re-hire some of the employees he fired.
Oh yeah, he also Tweet-hinted at bankruptcy so that’s fun.

Then there’s the elephant in the room.
Or shall I say the elephant not in the room? #dadjokes. The midterm elections were held in the U.S. this week and against all predictions the “red wave” that Trump, Mitch and co. were counting on, didn’t materialize. There are still voted to be counted but as of now, it looks like the Democrats will control the Senate and while the Republicans should take the House, the margins weren’t anything like they hoped for.

Then there’s FTX and SBF.
Crypto had its roughest week in a rough year. SBF lost about $22 billion dollars, authorities are investigating wrongdoing.
In short, it looks like Sam f-ed up. But that topic deserves a post of its own and I’m already exhausted. Until next time…