September was a fairly good month for investors. Stock markets were up pretty much across the board, for both U.S. and international markets. For the quarter, a strong September took U.S. markets back into the black. International markets, which got hit harder, stayed in the red. But what do these results mean for October? Let’s take a closer look.

September was a pretty good month, with U.S., international, and emerging markets all up. These results were surprising given the month’s events, including a drone strike on a Saudi oil complex and the impeachment inquiry of President Trump. Still, the fundamentals remained solid. New and existing home sales went up. We also saw strong personal income growth, leading to strong retail sales growth.

After this week’s trip to California, I am in Denver next week for Commonwealth’s National Conference. As always, I am looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones, as well as learning a lot from the different presentations. On top of that, I know I will have a great time at the many social events. Should be a wonderful week!

This will be a short post, as I am still traveling. It turns out planes, trains, and automobiles are not very conducive to thinking things through.

Yesterday was a big day for me. I had the opportunity to speak at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), one of NASA’s major labs. JPL runs the planetary science missions, including the Voyager probes. In the picture below, I’m in front of a model of the Voyager, which is one of the only human-made objects that has actually left the solar system. For a science fan like me, this trip was about as good as it gets. Thanks to Terry Himes of JPL for setting it up and leading a tour afterwards. It was a truly wonderful experience!

As regular readers of this blog know, every so often I drop the economic and market coverage and write about something different, usually about gratitude and how important it is. Now seems like a good time to do just that, as I am out of the office speaking this week, and nothing is actively detonating (for the moment!). I also have something specific I’d like to talk about. This gratitude post will be a bit different, as we will focus on active gratitude: giving back.

I was just in North Carolina speaking to clients and got home after midnight. Frankly, it has been a slow morning! So, I thought I would provide some quick takes about points that don’t warrant a full post but are still worth talking about.

Yesterday, the FOMC decided to reduce the target range for the federal funds rate from 2–2.25 percent to 1.75–2 percent. As the headlines put it, the Fed cut rates by one-quarter of a percent. The headline version is certainly pithier, but the first version is more accurate—and gives a better sense of what actually happened: the Fed did not lower rates (contrary to the headlines), but it did lower the target range for its own lending operations.

The big news over the weekend was the drone attack on the main oil processing facility in Saudi Arabia. Apparently, the attack significantly affected the nation’s ability to deliver oil, knocking production down by half or more according to some estimates (more than 4 million barrels per day). As I write this, no one knows when the damage will be repaired or when Saudi production will return to normal.

As U.S. markets once again approach new highs—after all the drama and the three separate pullbacks last month—I think it makes sense to try to gain some perspective about what is really going on. Immediately after the markets hit new highs last time around, we had quite a bit of volatility. So, it’s reasonable to wonder what will happen next as we approach these highs once again.