The Powell word, tone game/Some big stock moves off earnings

Jay Powell said nothing new yesterday that he didn't say at his presser last week but in the game of word and tone parsing, if he's relying on the 'tightening of financial conditions' as reason not to hike again, as he emphasized last week, the loosening since with the drop in long rates, might explain his re emphasis yesterday that if he needs to tighten again he will. That said, since the FOMC meeting last week, we saw a soft jobs number and yesterday another rise in continuing claims. 

On the wage front, the Atlanta Fed's October wage growth tracker was unchanged with September, up 5.2% y/o/y. For perspective, the comp was 6.4% seen in October 2022 and the 20 yr average leading into Covid was 3.4%.

So with the bad 30 yr auction yesterday, the China bank ICBC's US unit hack is being used as reason for slack demand but while there was a major systems disruption there, I'm skeptical that the Chinese were going to buy many 30 yr bonds anyway. With respect to foreign buying of US Treasuries, understand that the central banks are outright selling but private buying has offset that in terms of dollars but overall, the percentage of foreign holdings of total marketable securities is down sharply over the past 15 years. In 2010, foreign holdings of US Treasuries was 50%. Yes, half of US Treasury marketable debt. Today, that percentage is just 30%.