I have been preparing a couple of big-picture pieces over the past couple of days, including the monthly economic risk factor and market risk updates, and it has been a bit eye opening. Conditions have deteriorated more than I had realized. Although I still don’t think we are in the trouble zone, we are certainly getting closer, as was shown in this month's Economic Risk Factor Update. I wanted to get a bit more into the detail around those risks today.

The big economic news today is the jobs report, which was a much more mixed bag than usual. Expect to see headlines saying it was a terrible report, a good report, and pretty much everywhere in between. In fact, on the whole, this report shows that while growth is slowing, the economy continues to expand and is likely to keep doing so. Let’s take a look.

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.

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.

Brad here. Today, we have a look at the Fed’s recent move into the cash markets from Nicholas Follett, manager of fixed income on our Investment Management and Research team. Enjoy!