The market has been marking time, which is a military step in which soldier march in place.

Six sectors are moving higher, with Energy (XLE) leading the way up, supported by strong oil prices following the Israeli strike on Hamas officials in Doha this morning. The Materials (XLB) sector, on the other hand, is lagging and led lower by Albemarle (ALB) after news broke that the Yichun lithium mine in China is expected to resume production soon.

Alphabet (GOOG/L) and Meta Platforms (META) are the best performers in the Mega-Cap Seven, receiving the lion’s share of what little mega-cap strength is around today. Apple (AAPL) in the only Magnificent Seven in red as investors wait for the latest announcements from the company’s annual fall event this afternoon.

Jobs Front

We saw a monster (downward) revisions to jobs report for the last three years. The whole thing is so bizarre it reminds me of the Twilight episode “Midnight Sun” where a woman dreamed the earth was speeding toward the sun, when in fact the earth was barreling away from the sun.

The Street was looking for 700,000 fewer jobs, but it turns out there were 911,000 fewer jobs in the past year.

On this note, Secretary Bessent took to X after the revision, to highlight that the economy inherited by the Trump administration was worse than reported.

President Trump posted a long message on Truth Social saying the entire Fed needs to be fixed. The President now is advocating for a 50 to 100 bps rate cut.

Oracle (ORCL) set to report

Oracle reports after the close, with the stock making monster moves after posting results over the past years. On Monday, many analysts raised their price targets on Oracle, citing high expectations of accelerated growth.

Auction Reaction

The 3-year note auction saw strong demand. The auction drew a high yield of 3.485%, below the previous of 3.669%. The market saw some light buying following the auction results.