Fewer People Got Hired. That Makes the Fed More Likely to Do Nothing. Iran Fatigue Is Setting In for Everyone.
Closer 9 said Friday’s jobs report was the whole ballgame. It was. Hiring fell for the second month in a row, wages grew slower than expected too, and the Fed’s most likely next move flipped from a hike back to doing nothing. Iran adds a second reason to believe the calm can hold: everyone in that fight looks worn out, not just paused. Two inflation reports land back to back this week, right as the market sits closer to a coin flip on rates than it has all series. Here’s the week ahead.
One number flipped the whole week. Everything else fell in line behind it.
Bitcoin climbed to $65,190, up 1.4% on the week, but gold and silver are still the real story on the board, up sharply again and outrunning everything else tracked here. Every asset finished green except the dollar, which slipped again. That is a lopsided week, and it happened in the same one the Fed’s own math on rates flipped direction.
One thing worth flagging early: gold’s price kept climbing, but the money betting on it with leverage actually pulled back this week, the first time price and positioning have pointed different directions in a while. More on that in Section 04.
Hiring came in weak for the second month running. That flipped the Fed back to doing nothing.
Two weak jobs reports in a row is a pattern now, not a fluke, and it took away the Fed’s main reason to raise rates. Wages grew slower than expected too, which removes the other leg of the case for a hike. The market moved on it immediately: the odds of the Fed just holding steady in September jumped back above the odds of a hike, a genuine flip from where things stood a week ago.
The other story lines up with it. Iran is out of money. The US is low on weapons. The countries trying to broker peace are running out of patience. Everyone’s tired, which makes a slide back into full conflict, and the oil spike that would come with it, less likely.
Put those together, and the week ahead has fewer things working against it than it has in a while.
Two separate engines are pulling the same direction. Wednesday and Thursday test whether both hold.
The chain that mattered the last two issues was simple: hot inflation pressures the Fed toward a hike, a hike makes the dollar more attractive, and a bid dollar is bad for risk assets. Two separate things cut that chain off at the first link this week.
Two months of weak hiring leans toward a real trend, not noise, but it is not the whole picture yet. The inflation reports landing Wednesday and Thursday, consumer prices then producer prices, are what fill in the rest of it for both engines at once. A hot print on either one hands the hike case back to the Fed and puts a floor back under oil-driven inflation risk. A soft one confirms both chains are running the same direction.
Everything is green except the dollar. Not every green number agrees on why.
One rate below disagrees with its own price. Worth spotting before the table explains why.
A quiet start to the week, then two big prints land on the same two days.
No earnings from any name tracked here this week. Tech earnings season has effectively ended.
Wednesday and Thursday decide the week. One decision needs making before then.
The macro picture got clearer this week, not murkier, and that is the actual case for more conviction in a long position right now. Hiring broke for a second month, the Fed’s own math turned in your favor, buyers came back to the ETFs, and everyone in the Iran standoff looks worn out rather than escalating. Four separate things pointing the same direction is not something you see often.
Two inflation reports land back to back this week, exactly the scheduled, binary kind of event Lesson 6 is built around. The move here isn’t picking a side ahead of time, it’s sizing down before Wednesday so a surprise in either direction doesn’t force your hand. Rate odds already swung once this week on one data point. Two more chances for that this week alone.
Four separate things lined up in one direction this week, and being flat means you get Wednesday and Thursday before committing anything. That is the advantage nobody carrying risk has. The work now is deciding what each outcome means to you, so the prints tell you something instead of just moving the screen.
It missed its window, then quietly got a pulse back.
The CLARITY Act missed its chance to pass before the Senate’s August recess, exactly as expected. What nobody expected was the small procedural step that followed right after: the Senate actually filed the paperwork needed to set up a real vote when Congress returns in September. Prediction markets noticed, odds bounced from a low near 16% back up to 21%. Still a long way from likely, but a real, if narrow, path forward instead of a dead bill.
By Thursday evening the series will have both inflation prints in hand and know whether this week’s calm survived them. That, plus wherever the Iran-Oman story lands, gets the full treatment in Closer 10.
The covered call from Lesson 5 is still working. However you think about the position, long Bitcoin plus a sold call, or bought Bitcoin at $62,500 and sold the August $70,000 call against it, it is the same trade, and both legs are profitable right now. Bitcoin cleared the roll trigger this weekend. From here there are two honest choices: let the August $70,000 call keep decaying toward zero and revisit the roll closer to expiry, or roll now to the September $72,000 call, selling it for around $907 and locking in the higher ceiling today. Neither is wrong, it is a timing call.
Read the Lesson →The carry trade and the self-directed borrow from Lesson 3 are opposite sides of the same rate, not two different strategies. Carry means lending your dollars out: buy Bitcoin, sell a perpetual contract against it, and collect the funding. The self-directed borrow means the reverse, borrowing dollars: sell your Bitcoin, buy a perpetual contract to keep your exposure, and pay that same funding instead. Over the past 30 days, that funding rate averages 5.37% on dollar-settled contracts and 4.21% on stablecoin-settled contracts. The futures basis over the same stretch runs 4.2%. That’s what the numbers are right now, know which side of the trade you’re actually on before deciding what they mean for you.
Read the Lesson →This content is produced by Harmonic for educational purposes. It is strategy education, not investment advice.
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