As expected, the midterm election resulted in the Republicans gaining control of Congress. Despite all the ink and hot air expended on it, though, the election isn’t the most important news right now. The bigger story is the slump in the oil market as Saudi Arabia cuts prices for U.S. buyers.

After months of debate, millions of dollars spent, and hundreds of thousands of TV ads (and that’s just here in Boston over the past week), Election Day is finally here. When all’s said and done, will it actually make any difference?

Maybe not as much as partisans on both sides would hope, but yes, it will.

It’s time for our monthly update on risk factors that have proven to be reliable indicators of economic trouble ahead. As expected, the data hasn’t changed much from last month—it remains encouraging in almost all areas and, in many cases, has continued to improve—but it’s still important to keep an eye on things.

Heading into November, the economic forecast remains good after a news-heavy October.

Thus far in the recovery, wage growth has been a mirage—presumed to be out there, occasionally sighted, but never actually brought to bay. There have been signs for some time that wage growth was coming, but it's never arrived. Like someone crawling across the desert, every time we’ve seen water, it’s turned out to be just more sand.

That changed today.

The big news in my house right now is Halloween, with a major costume decision between Toothless (a dragon) and Hiccup (his friend) hanging in the balance. Neither choice is particularly scary (it’s a small dragon), and that’s okay—it won’t be a very scary Halloween for the economy either.  

In case you missed it, I was in studio for Fox Business's Opening Bell with Maria Bartiromo on October 15. The conversation centered on the recent market selloff, as well as the ongoing economic recovery. 

I’m going to take a chance—probably only a small one—and predict that the Federal Reserve will announce the end of its bond-buying program today.

If I’m wrong, I won’t be the only one. Expectations for the Fed to step back are almost universal at this point.

Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen government spending drop considerably as a percentage of the economy as a whole. But is it set for a comeback?

Today's big financial and economic news is that the European banking system is in better condition than many had thought.

An extensive review by the European Central Bank and the European Banking Authority was completed on Sunday. It concluded that, of the 130 large banks reviewed, only 25 were below the standards at the end of 2013; of those, 12 have since raised enough capital to get out of the danger zone.

One way to get ahead of trends, in my opinion, is to take basic assumptions that everyone just knows are true and think about what the world would be like if, in fact, those assumptions turned out to be wrong. 

Since returning from the Goldman Sachs conference yesterday, I’ve been thinking about what was said there—as well as what wasn't so much said as assumed.