Tomorrow, the Labor Department releases the jobs report—probably the most important economic report of them all. After all, jobs drive everything. As an indicator of business confidence, job growth is predictive; as the engine of consumer spending, job growth is determinative. We learn a lot about the economy from this report every month.

Writing my quarterly update the past couple of days, something occurred to me: international markets are beating U.S. markets for the first time in a while. This is big news, given that U.S. markets have dominated, unusually, for the past couple of years. Also noteworthy is that most asset classes are actually making money for the year—again, something we haven’t seen in a while.

September was a volatile month, with markets dropping only to bounce back at month-end. Large companies in the S&P 500 were down slightly, while smaller companies and those outside of the U.S. did well. Plus, as I discuss in this month's Market Thoughts video, there was a larger-than-expected pullback in the service sector, yet consumer confidence reached a nine-year high.

Last week’s economic reports showed a range of data, mainly focused on the consumer. Consumer news was largely good, but business and industry continued to disappoint, although by less than expected. Overall, based on last week’s data, the economy seems to keep creeping slowly forward, showing little sign of either the acceleration or slowdown that many have been predicting.

Yesterday, I laid out some of the big-picture constraints I see impacting the economy and the markets over the next year or two. Today, let’s take a look at what we can reasonably expect over the next month and for the rest of the year.

Writing my fourth-quarter preview of the economy and markets, which I plan to share with you tomorrow, I started thinking about several big ideas that are in play right now. Though these themes aren’t particularly actionable, they will frame our discussion of the near- to medium-term future.

Should we, as investors, be worried about the presidential election?

After spending last week talking with financial advisors and their clients, and the past couple of days thinking about the debate, it seems that’s the question on pretty much everyone’s mind.

As expected, last night’s presidential debate was a slugfest. With both Trump and Clinton swinging freely at each other, and the moderator struggling to maintain control, it was interesting to see how the candidates chose to spend their time in front of the nation. We learned something, even if it wasn’t what we might have wanted to learn.

Last week’s data focused on housing, including the National Association of Home Builders industry survey on Monday, housing starts on Tuesday, and sales of existing homes on Thursday. And of course, there was one very important event: the meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.

After the Fed’s meeting, the next potentially market-moving event is the first debate between presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. What can we expect from them on Monday?