As expected, October was a tough month for markets, as uncertainty surrounding the upcoming election and the future of interest rates continued to rattle investors.

A few weeks ago, I wrote a piece on what the election means for investors’ portfolios. Longer term, the answer was not much. Shorter term, there’s potential for market volatility, but the fundamental fact is that the U.S. economy should continue to grow, and financial markets—and investors—should continue to benefit from that growth.

Last week’s economic data was a mixed bag, focusing mostly on the consumer but also touching on business and the economy as a whole.

This is the season of ghosts and goblins, scary monsters, and small children roaming around in packs to loot the neighborhood of candy. In other words, it’s very much like the typical investment environment, with everyone looking to get something sweet but nervous about what might leap out of the bushes.

After taking a look at the bright side yesterday, more data has come across my desk that confirms just how reasonable (but not, of course, certain) that perspective is. One data point in particular puts some direct context around the reasons for optimism.

Yesterday, I wrote about the stock market risks that the AT&T/Time Warner merger might be signaling. Each month, I review market risks as suggested by several other key metrics. And over the last year or so, I’ve been giving a presentation to investors on the causal factors behind a sustained bear market.

Overall, my commentary on the markets has been decidedly risk-centric.

There have been a lot of headlines in the past couple of days about the proposed mega-merger between AT&T and Time Warner. In fact, I was on CNBC yesterday discussing it. At $85 billion, this would be the sixth-largest merger of all time, so it is indeed a big deal. Does it have any larger meaning, though?

Do big deals signal a market peak? Yesterday afternoon, I was on CNBC’s Power Lunch offering thoughts on the market amid the recent AT&T and Time Warner merger. 

Last week’s reports covered a wide range of the economy.

The headlines this week are all about Donald Trump’s refusal to accept his potential defeat in the U.S. presidential race. He has reserved the right to contest the results of the election, doubling down on his claims that the process is rigged. Although this is the first time the issue has arisen in the presidential forum, claims of data rigging have been quite common in recent years.