The Midday File — The Desk’s Report
Payrolls Triple the Forecast, the Chips Bounce, and Mississippi Widens
At noon the morning has corrected the week in three places. The October payrolls report, the test the Overnight Watch left at 0830, came in at 165,000 jobs against a consensus of 59,000, with unemployment down to 4.1 percent and the two prior months revised up by 84,000. New York opened split and an hour in the chips were bouncing and the Dow was not. And the count corrected itself in the open: Mississippi’s margin is wider in the newest tally, Colorado’s 4th stands at 3,069 in the wire’s latest totals, and no race was called in the morning.
The Noon in Brief
The morning’s largest settled fact is a labor report, not a market move. Employers added 165,000 jobs in October, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported at 0830, against forecasts of 59,000 in the Dow Jones consensus and 65,000 in the Reuters poll. The unemployment rate fell to 4.1 percent from 4.2. September’s gain, first printed at 29,000 in every edition of this paper since it was released, is revised to 60,000, and August’s to 186,000. The correction is filed where corrections belong, at the top of the next edition. Around that fact the morning arranged itself: the Nasdaq bounced on chip buying and the Dow did not follow; Europe fell at its midday by more than the overnight futures had promised; Brent seesawed across $100 and back under it; gold fell for a second session; the odds of a December rate increase rose from about two in three to better than three in four; and in Washington and Moscow the official statements of the morning were, in order, a deadline reached in the House Republican leadership race and a spokesman saying there are no details.
The Payrolls: 165,000, and the Record Corrected Upward
The report beat the highest forecast on the shelf, not only the consensus. CNN’s account of the release and USA Today’s account carry the same headline figures: 165,000 jobs added in October, unemployment at 4.1 percent, and combined upward revisions of 84,000 to August and September—August up 53,000 to 186,000, September up 31,000 to 60,000. The release file adds the detail under the headline: private payrolls up 159,000 against 64,000 expected, and the unrounded unemployment rate at 4.141 percent against 4.1753 percent the month before. The three-month average gain now stands at 137,000. The September figure this paper carried at 29,000 for five weeks was the bureau’s first estimate; the bureau’s second estimate is 60,000, and the log records the change rather than quietly replacing it.
The hiring was led by the services that employ the most people. Professional and business services added 70,000 jobs, against a prior-year average of 15,000 a month in the accounts; health care added 42,000, transportation and warehousing 25,000, and manufacturing 19,000, per the market account carrying the report’s breakdown. Average hourly earnings rose 14 cents, or 0.4 percent, to $38.00, and 3.1 percent over the year—the strongest monthly wage gain since January in one account, and above the 0.3 percent and 2.9 percent the forecasts had carried. The labor force grew by 421,000 and participation rose to 61.9 percent from 61.8. Two figures in the same report run the other way and are printed with the rest: the number working part time for economic reasons rose by 339,000 to 4.8 million, and long-term unemployment stands at 2.0 million, 27.6 percent of all unemployed, up from about 1.1 million in 2023. The private ADP report, already in at 86,000, which the overnight edition printed as the morning’s advance bearing, pointed the right way and understated the official figure by half.
The consumers in the same morning’s second report are less cheerful than the payrolls, and the survey predates the election. The University of Michigan’s preliminary November sentiment index rose to 51.0 from October’s final 48.0, against expectations of 47.5 to 48, per Dow Jones Newswires’ account: current conditions at 51.0, up from 46.7, expectations at 50.9, up from 48.8, and one-year inflation expectations down to 4.3 percent from 4.7. The interviews ran from October 20 to November 2 and closed before Tuesday’s results were known; the final November reading, with post-election interviews in it, comes later in the month. The index stands near its record low of 44.8, set in May. The two reports together are the morning’s economic whole: the hiring is stronger than anyone forecast, and the households being hired remain, by their own account, gloomy.
The Markets’ Reading at Noon: The Chips Bounce, the Dow Does Not
New York opened in the split the futures had promised, and the first hour widened the technology side of it. At 9:36 a.m. the Nasdaq Composite was up 1.2 percent at 24,601.93 and the S&P 500 up 0.38 percent at 7,381.99, while the Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 449.65 points, or 0.87 percent, at 51,073.41, in the market account filed above. By 10:01 the bounce had broadened inside the same split: the Nasdaq up 1.7 percent at 24,732.09, the S&P 500 up 0.9 percent at 7,421.33, and the Dow’s loss pared to 127.38 points, or 0.2 percent. The early-session wrap, in quotes timed 15:42 GMT—10:42 a.m. ET—runs the same order an hour into the session: the Nasdaq 100 up 1.57 percent at 27,046.81, the Nasdaq Composite up 1.36 percent at 24,644.52, the S&P 500 up 0.74 percent at 7,408.36, and the Dow down 0.06 percent at 51,489.99, with information technology leading the S&P’s sectors at up 1.57 percent and consumer staples last, down 0.70 percent. Nvidia rose about 6 percent in early trading, and the semiconductor fund that fell by double digits on Thursday rose about 6.5 percent. The volatility index fell about 15 percent to 23.9 in one morning account. These are snapshots an hour into a session, printed as snapshots; Thursday’s closes stand beneath them, and what the bounce is worth belongs to the close.
Europe did not get the bounce, and its midday is the session’s plainest contrast. Reuters’ European file had the STOXX 600 down 1 percent at 648.83 by 0919 GMT, its gains for the week wiped out, with media, health care, and personal and household goods each down more than 2 percent and Teleperformance down 18 percent on a cut outlook. The London midday account, at 1219 GMT, runs the fall deeper: the STOXX 600 down 1.76 percent at 643, Germany down 2.44 percent, the United Kingdom down 2.21 percent, France down 1.76 percent, Italy down 1.23 percent, and Spain down 1.25 percent. A third account puts the STOXX 600 down 1.6 percent at 644.72 at its low. The three readings were taken at three hours of one falling session and are printed as a range, 1.0 to 1.76 percent. The shelter the overnight edition noted—Europe’s smaller share of the AI trade—held in degree and not in direction: the fall is a fraction of Tokyo’s 6 percent and Seoul’s 6 percent, and it is a fall, on the day the American technology shares themselves were recovering.
The Rate Reading: Three in Four for December
The payrolls moved the rate file further than the stock file. The ten-year Treasury yield rose about 3 to 4 basis points on the report, to 4.87–4.88 percent, and the dollar index rose 0.62 percent to about 102.22 in the post-report account. The CME FedWatch probability of a 25-basis-point increase at the Federal Reserve’s December 8–9 meeting rose to 76.8 percent after the release, from above 66 percent on Thursday, per the yields account carrying the CNBC reading and the jobs-and-rates account; a later state of the same tool runs at about 77 percent. The Fed’s range stands at 3.75 to 4.00 percent, held on October 28 by 10–2, with Governor Cook and Cleveland’s President Hammack preferring an increase. The next bearing is printed on the calendar: October consumer prices on Tuesday, November 10, and the November payrolls on December 4. Two Fed officials speak this afternoon, after this edition collects; their words belong to the Evening Watch.
Gold fell on the same figures, for the second session in a row. Spot gold stood at $4,048.97 an ounce at 0124 ET, down 1 percent, before the report, and at $4,047.10 after it, down 1 percent in the Reuters figures carried in the precious-metals update, with silver edging higher; the post-report account above runs gold at about $4,050, down 1.20 percent, with the dollar and yields up. The metal stands about 4 to 4.5 percent higher on the week even after two falling sessions, below Thursday’s two-week high of $4,146. The accounts give one reason in both directions: a labor market this firm gives the central bank room to raise rates, and higher rates are the weather gold does not like.
Oil Seesaws: Over a Hundred Before Breakfast, Under It by the London Morning
Brent crossed $100 for the second morning in a row and, for the second morning, did not hold it. The overnight states stand as Edition No. 10 printed them: $99.58 at 0504 GMT and $99.90 at 0730 GMT. A Mumbai account of the Asian morning puts Brent at $100.30, up 2 percent, at 0439 GMT in its figures, with West Texas Intermediate at $91.80. The later states run down. Dow Jones Newswires’ update, timed 0602 ET, has front-month Brent down 0.7 percent at $97.59 and West Texas Intermediate down 0.5 percent at $89.98. Reuters’ London file has January Brent down 74 cents, or 0.8 percent, at $97.55 by 0826 GMT, and West Texas Intermediate down 73 cents at $89.79. Thursday’s settlement stands beneath all of it: Brent $98.29, West Texas Intermediate $90.52.
The week’s bearing is where the files disagree, and the desk prints the disagreement. The London Reuters file puts Brent on track for a fall of 16 percent on the week—its steepest weekly percentage fall since the start of the pandemic, and its biggest in absolute terms in data back to 1988—with West Texas Intermediate down more than 13 percent. The Asian and overnight files put both benchmarks at about 12 percent on the week. The difference is the contract and the hour each file measures from, and it is printed rather than resolved. What no file disputes is the cargo in the price: de-escalation hopes after the election pulling down, tanker attacks at a near-record pace in the British agency’s count holding a floor, flows through the strait under 60 percent of capacity, and JPMorgan’s surplus estimate—supply ahead of demand by 1.1 million barrels a day in September and 1.4 million in October—standing against the rebound. Saudi Aramco on Thursday cut the December price of its Arab Light crude to Asia by $2 a barrel, per the Dow Jones update, the sellers’ own reading of the same market.
The Count at Noon: Mississippi Widens, Colorado Stands, Nothing Is Called
No race was called in the morning, in either chamber, in any state—the third morning running that sentence has led this section. The Senate stands at 54 seats for the Democrats and 44 for the Republicans, with Alaska and Mississippi uncalled in the Associated Press Senate file, which now lists Mississippi at 100 percent of precincts reporting and Alaska at 73.95 percent. The House moved at the edges. The wire’s national tracker in its latest state shows 249 seats won by the Democrats and 12 led, against 156 won and 18 led for the Republicans. The live results file, in its update of November 6 at 09:56 CET, runs the called figure higher: 253 House seats called for the Democrats and 157 for the Republicans, with 25 still uncalled. A third tally, updated at 3:55 a.m. EST, runs it higher still: 254 called for the Democrats and 160 for the Republicans, with 414 of 435 races called. Three methods, three hours, one chamber—and agreement, as on every morning of this count, on the outcome and on nothing smaller.
Mississippi’s margin widened in the newest tally, and the widening is the count’s one correction of substance. Decision Desk HQ’s update of November 6 at 03:29 EST, carried in the live results file, puts the Democrat, Scott Colom, at 467,233 votes and the incumbent Republican, Cindy Hyde-Smith, at 465,146—a lead of 2,087, with more than 95 percent of the estimated vote counted, the third candidate’s total revised down in the same update. The third tally above runs the same order narrower: Colom 466,877, Hyde-Smith 464,993, a lead of 1,884. The range this paper has printed for this race now runs from a few dozen votes in its earliest states to 2,087 in its newest, the leader the same in every state of it. The procedure stands as filed: affidavit identification due November 10, counties certify by November 13, the most votes wins, no automatic recount. Alaska stands exactly where it stood: the Democrat, Mary Peltola, ahead of the incumbent Republican, Dan Sullivan, by 637 first-choice votes, 102,962 to 102,325, with the ranked-choice tabulation set for November 18.
Colorado’s 4th District corrected its totals upward on both sides, and the margin corrected with them. The overnight edition, following the state file updated Thursday evening, carried the Democrat, Eileen Laubacher, at 184,103 votes and the incumbent Republican, Lauren Boebert, at 181,079—a margin of 3,024. The wire’s district file in its latest state carries both totals higher—Laubacher 184,624, Boebert 181,555, at 97.22 percent of precincts reporting and an estimated 97.3 percent of the vote—and the margin at 3,069, outside the roughly 920 votes that would require an automatic recount. The race is uncalled. What the morning added is the trailing campaign’s position: the account of the Boebert campaign’s statement records that the campaign is investigating what it calls unusual voting patterns, that its lawyer’s statement late Thursday insinuated a recount is forthcoming, and that under state law a recount at a margin above half a percent is paid for by the candidate who asks for it. The same account runs the lead at 2,927 in its own figures. The ballots that remain are signature cures and military and overseas ballots, due by November 12, with the counties finishing on November 13.
The Official Statements: A Big Agreement in Washington, No Details in Moscow
The president’s Thursday statement on Ukraine stands at noon with the Kremlin’s Friday answer beside it, and the two do not describe the same amount of knowledge. On Thursday, after meeting President Putin’s envoy Kirill Dmitriev at the White House, the president told reporters the sides were “very close” and, in the account of the meeting, that “it’s going to be a deal, it’s going to be a big deal” that could involve more than Ukraine and “all of Europe.” He gave no terms and no timeline, said he could not say what he and Dmitriev had discussed, and said he had not met the Ukrainian delegation that was also at the White House, for an event hosted by the first lady marking the six-day humanitarian ceasefire around Oleshky, which ran from October 27 to November 1 and has expired. On Friday the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, was asked about the agreement in Moscow. The account of his answer records it in three words—“there are no details”—and the rest of it: Dmitriev has not yet returned from the United States and has not reported to President Putin, and Russia has received no European ideas on security guarantees. American officials held discussions in Brussels the same day with Ukraine, NATO, and European partners on security guarantees, per the account of the meeting. Delegations from Washington, Moscow, and Kyiv are due in Abu Dhabi on November 10 and 11. Until one of the capitals puts terms on paper, the big agreement exists as the president’s description of it, with the other capital’s spokesman stating, on the record, that he has not been told what it is.
On Iran, no decision was announced by noon, and the strait file grew by claims. The president’s Thursday words stand where the overnight edition left them—a decision coming soon, no date named—and no announcement had followed by 1200. What arrived in the morning was Tehran’s. The Revolutionary Guards said on Friday that two more oil tankers caught fire after striking naval mines while crossing the strait by an unauthorized route, that both vessels had turned off their navigation and identification systems, that the strait remains closed until the United States meets Iran’s seven conditions, and that a naval electronic warfare unit took control of two uncrewed combat drones and landed them undamaged, per the agency account of the statement and the account carrying the statement’s text. No vessel was named, and no statement from the American military or any tanker operator appears in any file the desk took in the morning; the claims are filed as claims, beside the British agency’s standing count of at least five vessels reporting incidents since Sunday. The account of the president’s options runs them at four—a full resumption of the war, one large strike and an exit, continued pressure, or an interim deal on the Qatari track—with Kharg Island’s energy infrastructure named as the step Washington has not taken. The Qatari draft and Tehran’s seven conditions stand as the overnight edition printed them. Nothing was signed.
Washington’s own paper at noon is a deadline kept and a letter sent. Candidates for the House Republican leadership elections were required to declare by noon today, and no new name entered the field in the morning in any file on the shelf. The contest for minority leader stands as filed: Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, declared since Wednesday, with Speaker Mike Johnson not seeking the post; Majority Whip Tom Emmer seeking to remain whip, challenged by August Pfluger; the elections set for Tuesday, November 10. Mr. Scalise’s other act of the week reached print Friday: the account of his Thursday letter records that he asked Republican committee chairs to take inventory of the administration—to identify, in advance, the subjects the incoming majority’s investigations are expected to reach—while his own letter seeking the leadership calls for unity and for procedural disruption of the majority’s agenda. Mr. Jordan’s letter to his colleagues pitches him as battle-tested in the investigations to come. Both men are campaigning, in writing, for the job of leading the minority against the oversight the other letter is cataloguing. The House itself returns Monday.
The Cocked Hat
Three bearings never give a point; they give a small triangle, and this paper prints the triangle. First, the Ukraine agreement: “very close” and “big” in the president’s Thursday words, “no details” in the Kremlin spokesman’s Friday words, with the envoy who carried whatever was discussed not yet home to report it—two capitals describing one meeting, and the distance between the descriptions is the fact. Second, the House at noon: 249 seats won in the wire’s tracker, 253 called in the live file’s morning check, 254 called in the third tally, with the uncalled running at 25 in one file and 21 in another. Third, Brent’s week: down about 12 percent in the Asian and overnight files, down 16 percent in the London file, the steepest since the pandemic in that file’s measure—one falling market read from two starting lines. Fourth, Mississippi: 1,884 in one tally and 2,087 in the newest, the lead widening in both directions of the comparison and the leader unchanged in every bearing this paper has ever printed for the race. Against the triangle, the load-bearing facts of the midday are single-valued: payrolls rose 165,000 and unemployment fell to 4.1 percent; September is revised to 60,000; the December hike probability stands above 76 percent; Brent trades under $100 and gold under $4,050; Europe is down between 1.0 and 1.76 percent at its midday; no race was called; two more tankers are claimed in the strait and none is confirmed; and the Abu Dhabi delegations meet on November 10, the same day the House conferences elect their leaders and Mississippi’s affidavit deadline falls. The session belongs to the close. The log proceeds to the evening.