1. A Bad Year for Stock Pickers…Momentum Ruled Over Fundamentals 2025
Bloomberg
2. October Volatility Common…Highest Vol Month
Nasdaq Dorsey Wright October historically sees significantly more volatile days than other months. Gong back to 1987, the S&P 500 averages just under seven days of 1% movement, the highest average of any month. This volatility tends to trail off as we get close to year-end. November and December each average about five 1% days, among the lowest average of any month.
NASDAQ DORSEY WRIGHT
3. China ETF (FXI) Breaks Out vs. India (INDA)
StockCharts
4. China Back in Lead vs. India…3-Year China +78% vs. India +32%
YCharts
5. Small vs. Large. “Small-caps today are hitting the highest levels since February relative to Large-caps.”
DAILY CHARTBOOK
6. Since 1956 Argentina has Received 23 Bailouts for the IMF
Since 1956, the country that gave the world Diego Maradona and the tango has received 23 bailouts from the International Monetary Fund (largely funded by the U.S.). Not only have the bailouts not fixed the underlying problems facing Argentina, but the country has defaulted on its sovereign debt nine times, including three defaults since 2000. https://fundstrat.com/
Semafor
Argentina ETF -16% YTD
Google Finance
7. Year to Date ETF Flows
The Irrelevant Investor
8. Share of Americans Drinking Alcohol Breaks to New All-Time Lows
2. XLY Consumer Discretionary (offense) Made New High Versus XLP Consumer Staples (defense)
StockCharts
3. Bitcoin Miner ETF Move Since Liberation Day…WGMI
StockCharts
4. Bank Earnings Reports Coming…Regional Banks Never Made New Highs
StockCharts
5. Follow-Up to Yesterday’s Private Equity Stock Charts….BDC ETF vs. S&P 2025
Lead Lag Report Blog -The Business Development Company (BDC) sector has had a rough ride in 2025. The VanEck BDC Income ETF (BIZD), a broad proxy for the group, is down 16.36% year-to-date as of early October, while the S&P 500 is up over 13%.¹ Even reliable names like Ares Capital (ARCC), Blue Owl Capital (OBDC), and Blackstone Secured Lending (BXSL) are trading 10–20% below their 2024 highs.² Despite attractive yields — often in the 9–11% range — the market is pricing in deeper credit risk and the possibility of further dividend cuts
The Lead-Lag Report
6. Friday was Largest Futures Liquidation in Bitcoin History
BTC open interest. “Friday’s wipeout triggered the largest futures liquidation in Bitcoin’s history. Over $11B in open interest was erased as leverage was forcefully unwound. A historic deleveraging event that has reset speculative excess across the market.”
7. Post Friday….A TOP crypto mogul has been found dead inside his Lamborghini after a brutal market crash wiped out billions in digital assets
Konstantin Galich — better known as Kostya Kudo — was discovered on Saturday with a gunshot wound to the head inside a black Lamborghini Urus in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Crypto mogul Konstantin Galich was found dead in Kyiv
Cops discovered the 32-year-old inside his black Lamborghini Urus
Cops said a firearm registered in the 32-year-old’s name was recovered at the scene.
Investigators are treating the case as a possible suicide but have not ruled out foul play.
A statement from the Kyiv Police Department said that the day before his death, “the man told relatives that he was feeling depressed due to financial difficulties and also sent them a farewell message.”
News of the Ukrainian’s death was confirmed on Galich’s official Telegram channel, which posted: “Konstantin Kudo tragically passed away “The causes are being investigated. We will keep you posted on any further news.”
Galich was the co-founder of the Cryptology Key trading academy and a major influencer in the digital asset space.
He was widely followed across the crypto community, with more than 66,000 Instagram followers hanging on his market insights.
AI Overview Cobots, or collaborative robots, are industrial robots designed to work safely alongside human employees in a shared workspace, unlike traditional robots that require safety cages. They are characterized by user-friendly design, flexibility, lower power levels, and the ability to be quickly deployed for various tasks, such as assembly, packaging, or machine tending. Cobots augment human capabilities by taking on repetitive, dangerous, or ergonomically challenging tasks, allowing human workers to focus on more complex and creative aspects of their jobs
1. Start Today with Private Equity Manager’s Charts…..KKR -20% Year to Date-Failed to Make New Highs—Close Below 200day
2. Apollo -28% Year to Date…Failed to Make New Highs….50day and 200day sloping down
3. Blackstone -10% Year to Date…Failed to Make New Highs…Closed Below 200 Day
StockCharts
4. 100 Best Stock Performers 2025 were Down the Most During Friday Pullback
Bespoke-The 100 stocks that were up the most from 9/2 through the close last Thursday (10/9) were down an average of 4.7% on Friday. Every other decile of stocks saw average declines in the 2% range.
Bespoke
5. Gold Most Overbought Based on RSI in History
Barchart
6. Slowdown in Growth of Data Centers
Torsten SløkApollo Chief EconomistThere is still strong growth in data center construction, but the current growth rate at 30% is lower than the 80% observed two years ago, see chart below.
7. Major Bank Deregulation Underway by Trump Administration
Dave Lutz at Jones Trading “We think the Trump administration is kicking off a major wave of deregulation, unlocking a huge amount of capacity, which will give a massive economic boost and an earnings uplift,” said Fernando de la Mora, co-head of financial services at Alvarez & Marsal. The New York-based consultancy predicted US banks would benefit from a 14 per cent reduction in their requirements for common equity tier one, a capital buffer that gives them capacity to absorb losses.
THE FINANCIAL TIMES
It forecast this would result in a 35 per cent boost to their earnings per share and a 6 per cent increase in their return on average tangible common equity — a benchmark used by investors. The report, due to be published on Monday, provides detailed estimates of the impact of changes to banking regulation across the world.
8. Kalshi Prediction Markets Hits $5B Valuation
Kalshi, a prediction market that allows people to bet on future events, announced that it raised over $300 million at a $5 billion valuation. The company’s value has increased 2.5x since its last fundraise just three months ago, when it was valued at $2 billion.
The fresh capital came from Kalshi’s existing investor, Sequoia Capital, with new investor Andreessen Horowitz co-leading the round. Paradigm Ventures, CapitalG, and Coinbase Ventures also participated.
Kalshi also revealed that consumers in 140 countries can now make bets on its platform.
The prediction market is seeing a dramatic surge in activity: Kalshi is set to reach $50 billion in annualized trading volume, up significantly from the approximately $300 million volume posted last year, the New York Times reported.
Kalshi’s fundraise announcement follows one made just days earlier by archrival Polymarket, which revealed that it had secured an investment of up to $2 billion from Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the owner of the New York Stock Exchange, at a pre-money valuation of $8 billion. The deal valued Polymarket at $8 billion pre-money, a monumental increase from its $1 billion valuation only two months earlier in August.
Both Kalshi and Polymarket rose to prominence last year, drawing significant attention for their prediction markets on the presidential election outcome.
Polymarket has been barred from serving U.S. residents since 2022, following a settlement with the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). In July, the company acquired a derivatives exchange and a clearing house. The move helped Polymarket receive the right to reenter the U.S. market. Last month, the company’s CEO and founder, Shayne Coplan, said on X: “Polymarket has been given the green light to go live in the USA by the CFTC.” Kalshi secured the right for Americans to use its platform after successfully suing the CFTC last year
9. Want to feel calmer? How 20 minutes outside will help
Yasmin Rufo-BBC News
Spending just 20 minutes in nature can trigger measurable changes inside your body
If you’ve ever felt calmer after a walk in the park or a stroll through the woods, it’s not your imagination – it’s biology.
Being outdoors can trigger measurable changes inside your body from lowering stress hormones, easing blood pressure and even improving your gut health.
You don’t have to hike for hours to feel these benefits as maximum impact happens after just 20 minutes, so even a lunchtime walk to the park and a sandwich on a bench a few times a week can benefit your body and mind.
Here are four ways that being among nature can help improve your health.
Drs Chris and Xand van Tulleken are on a mission to help us take better care of ourselves. Listen to What’s Up Docs? on BBC Sounds or wherever you get your BBC podcasts.”
1. You unconsciously relax
When you see green trees, smell pine and hear gentle rustling leaves or the sound of birdsong, your autonomic nervous system – a network of nerves controlling unconscious processes – responds instantly.
This can happen on a visit to the local park.
“We see changes in the body such as a lowering of blood pressure, a change in your heart rate variability and your heart beats slower – all associated with physiological calming,” Baroness Kathy Willis, a biodiversity professor at Oxford University, told BBC Radio 4’s What’s Up Docs? podcast.
A UK study, involving nearly 20,000 people, found that those who spent at least a total of 120 minutes every week in greenery were significantly more likely to report good health and higher psychological well-being.
The evidence for the benefits of spending time in nature is compelling enough that some areas have trialled so called green social prescribing connecting people with nature to improve their phsyical and mental health, with a positive impact on happiness and wellbeing.
2. Your hormones reboot
Your body’s hormonal system also joins in the relaxation act.
Willis says that spending time outdoors triggers our endocrine system and lowers levels of cortisol and adrenaline – the hormones that surge when you’re stressed or anxious.
“A study found that people in a hotel room for three days who were breathing in Hinoki (Japanese cypress) oil saw a big drop in the adrenaline hormone and a large increase in natural killer cells in their blood.”
Natural killer cells are cells that tackle viruses in the body. The participants in the study still had elevated natural killer cells in their body two weeks after inhaling the smell.
Essentially nature “calms what needs calming and strengthens what needs strengthening,” is how Prof Ming Kuo from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, summed it up to the BBC.
“A three-day weekend in nature has a huge impact on our virus fighting apparatus and even a month later it can be 24% above baseline.”
Studies also show smaller but still persistent effects from shorter periods spent in nature, she says.
3. Smell is a powerful sense
Smelling nature is just as powerful as seeing and hearing it.
The scent of trees and soil is full of organic compounds released by plants and “when you breathe them in, some molecules pass into the bloodstream.”
Willis says pine is a good example of this as the smell of a pine forest can make you calmer within just 90 seconds and that effect lasts for about 10 minutes.
You may think that the relaxing effect of nature is all in your mind, but another study found that even very young babies with no memory associated with particular smells, still calmed down when another scent associated with calming, limonene was puffed into the room they were in.
4. Gets good bacteria into your gut
Touching soil can help your body adopt good bacteria
As well as soothing your mind, nature can also help boost your microbiome as soil and plants are full of good bacteria.
“They’re the same kinds of good bacteria we pay for in probiotics or drinks,” Willis explains.
Prof Ming Kuo has studied the effect on factors such as infection susceptibility as well as mental health and says breathing in certain ones have the potential to boost your mood; and the antimicrobial chemicals released by plants – called phytoncides – could help fight disease.
Dr Chris van Tulleken says as an infection scientist he sees nature as a positively challenging environment that “tickles your immune system”.
He gets his children to play with dirt in the forest which then enters their system through the nose or mouth.
10. Interview with Hetty Green—1800’s Billionaire-Farnam Street Blog
Hetty Green was the richest woman you’ve never heard of.
In the late 1800s, she built a fortune worth billions today in a world designed to stop her. She was a force that couldn’t be stopped.
Her strategies still work today. This is the story of how an unwanted daughter became “The Witch of Wall Street,” and a playbook for building lasting wealth and independence.
Retail demand. “We have just witnessed the largest Retail Investor buying EVER. Retail has bought over +$100B of US stocks in the last month, the largest 1M buying on record.”
2. Earnings Season Kicks Off Next Week….Tech Earnings Still Delivering
Ryan Detrick
3. Softbank Another Leg Up From Japan Bull News…$20-$70 2025
StockCharts
4. Airline ETF Still Below Pre-Covid Highs
StockCharts
5. Silver Has Been Here Twice Before
Sam Ro
6. Public Companies Owning Bitcoin
Bitcoin News
7. Most Large Private Equity Firms are Now Private Credit Firms
BRAMSHILL INVESTMENTS
8. Loss of Trust in American Institutions Continues
Axios
9. Rare Earth ETF Double Off Bottom…Still Below 2023 Highs
StockCharts
10. Are you a high-hope thinker? take the quiz
There’s been a fair amount of research done on whether optimism is good or bad for you, not just in investment outcomes but generally in life satisfaction. On the one hand, some studies conclude, optimism has a highly positive effect on mindset, motivation, entrepreneurial mojo, and even reactions to medical treatments. It helps people recover from setbacks, and increases the chance they will save money for what they expect to be a rosy future.
On the other hand, too much optimism can backfire. People who are very optimistic may under-estimate risk and over-estimate their abilities. They may visit the doctor less often than they should, employ overly risky investment strategies, and be less happy in the long-run if their expectations for future success are not met.
If you’re a parent, you’ve probably noticed how most kids allow their over-optimism to take the place of robust planning: until they eventually learn better, they’re so confident things will work out that they often skip the part where they have to actually study for their test, practice for their try-outs, or save money for the thing they might want later.
Optimism is passive– a somewhat complacent belief that good things will probably happen to you, without much need for planning or preparation on your part. This is distinct from the concept of hope, which is “the glass is half full”, but also implies that you can impact your future satisfaction by actions you take.
One of the founders of the Positive Psychology movement in the 1990s was a research scientist named C.R. Snyder, author of the influential 1994 book The Psychology of Hope. In it he argued that a better predictor of life satisfaction is whether you have a strong combination of agency (the motivational energy to set and pursue goals) and “way-power” (the confidence that you will be able to find a way to attain your goals).
If you’re curious, you can take the same quiz thousands of research subjects have taken over the last 30+ years:
Contessa Capital Advisors
Source: The Psychology of Hope, C.R. Snyder
Better yet, try it with your kids and talk about the results over dinner.
To score the quiz, points are from 1 to 6 with the highest being “All of the Time”. Source: The Psychology of Hope, C.R. Snyder
Beyond his hope scale, some characteristics Snyder ascribed to “high-hope” people (quiz score over 24) include a propensity to downplay negatives and focus on problem-solving, a sense of humor even during times of struggle, a tendency to care about their physical health, and a social network they can call on for support.
All this raises the obvious question: what are all these people hoping for?
Snyder’s research showed that high-hope people don’t just set goals; they connect them to something larger, and generate multiple strategies for getting there. That’s what allows them to bounce back when life blocks the first route.
A meta-goal is bigger than any single outcome. It’s the overarching aim that organizes your smaller goals. For example, “being healthy and energetic as I age” is a meta-goal. The daily sub-goals under it might be as simple as exercising three times a week or getting enough sleep. If one pathway fails — say you get injured and can’t run — the meta-goal still stands, and you can find another path, like swimming or yoga.
You can train yourself to think more hopefully by setting meaningful goals, breaking them into doable steps, and brainstorming alternate routes when you hit obstacles. Even small habits — reframing a setback as “just one blocked path,” or practicing saying “what’s another way I could try this?” — are productive.
When I work with clients I include a statement of financial purpose—effectively a set of meta-goals–in their action plan. Like an investment policy statement, it’s the umbrella for the smaller sub-goals related to how much money to spend or save and how much risk is worth taking. It’s also a chance to practice anticipating different pathways.
Meta-goals aren’t just for financial plans. Since we’re talking about hope, it’s worth mentioning the amazing, inimitable Jane Goodall, who died this week at age 91 after a lifetime of education and conservation. She often spoke about her four reasons for hope — the energy of youth, the power of the human brain, the resilience of nature, and the strength of human connection and spirit. Her meta-goal was clear and unwavering: to protect and honor life on Earth. The specific pathways changed — research, advocacy, writing, youth programs — but the larger purpose never did.
