The October hike is mostly priced out. This week's job is to test that

Wall Street opens the week with a market that has already made up its mind about October and very little scheduled before Wednesday to change it. Index futures barely moved overnight. A snapshot taken just after midnight UTC had E-mini S&P 500 futures at 7,785.50, up 0.11%, Nasdaq 100 futures at 31,134.50, up 0.23%, Dow futures at 51,513, up 0.07%, and Russell 2000 futures up 0.14%. By European hours the signs had flipped without the size changing: S&P 500 futures were quoted down about 0.09% near 7,770 and Dow futures down 0.07% near 51,440, with Nasdaq 100 futures roughly steady near 31,070. A separate 4:30 a.m. ET read described all three as flat with a positive bias.

That is the honest summary: the pre-open tape is flat, and anyone quoting a precise percentage is quoting a timestamp.

What Friday actually settled

The September employment report is the reason the week starts calm. Nonfarm payrolls rose 29,000 against a 90,000 consensus in the Reuters poll, August was revised down to 133,000 from 162,000, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 4.2% from 4.1%. Equities read it as a reason for the Federal Reserve to wait. The S&P 500 closed up 56.27 points, or 0.73%, at 7,722.72, within about 1% of its record. The Dow Jones Industrial Average added 250.40 points, or 0.49%, to 51,176.96. The Nasdaq Composite gained 319.27 points, or 1.19%, to 27,190.86. The Russell 2000 rose 0.94% to 2,832.90 and the Cboe Volatility Index fell 6.59% to 15.31.

The week itself was less cheerful than Friday. The S&P 500 shed 0.27%, the Dow fell 1.26%, and only the Nasdaq finished higher, up 0.45%.

Rate-hike pricing did the heavy lifting. CME FedWatch had the probability of an increase of at least 25 basis points on October 27-28 at 22.7% after the report, against 24.4% the session before and 64.2% a week earlier. Independent venues agree on the shape: Kalshi's October hike contract last traded at 28 cents, Polymarket showed about 25% with more than $22 million wagered, and one analysis published Monday put CME's October odds at 22% with December at 67%. Reuters, citing LSEG, noted traders still assign roughly an 86% chance to a hike at some point by year end. October is the question markets think they have answered; December is the one they have not.

The bond market did not fully agree

Treasuries spent Friday morning rallying and the afternoon giving it back. The 10-year yield fell as low as 5.157% in the first hour and closed 4.72 basis points higher at 5.281%. The two-year touched 4.6934%, a two-week low, before finishing up 3.98 basis points at 4.827%. The 30-year settled 2.91 basis points higher at 5.6321%. For the week the 10-year still rose about 10 basis points, a fifth straight weekly increase, while the two-year fell 3.3 basis points in its first weekly decline since August.

In other words, the part of the curve that tracks the Fed believed the jobs report. The part that prices growth, supply and inflation did not. Yields eased again in Asian trading overnight, which is part of why futures held their ground.

Oil is falling for a supply reason, not a peace reason

Crude is lower on Monday, and the reason matters. Brent futures were quoted down 35 to 70 cents at roughly $101.60 to $101.90 a barrel and US West Texas Intermediate down 62 to 90 cents at about $90.15 to $90.49, after WTI settled Friday at $91.41. The pressure comes from supply: Group of Seven nations are releasing stocks, and Reuters-cited shipping data showed Middle East crude exports climbed above pre-war levels on four of the final seven days of September despite attacks on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

The risk side has not gone away. The Houthis said they fired ballistic missiles and drones at Saudi Aramco sites in Riyadh and the Khurais area in response to 50 Saudi-led air and missile strikes in Yemen over the previous 12 hours; Saudi Arabia has not confirmed the attacks. Goldman Sachs co-head of commodities research Daan Struyven told Bloomberg the attacks showed disruptions could spread, with the bank sketching a path to $120 a barrel if strikes intensify and a move back toward $80 if exports normalize — scenarios, not forecasts.

Gold went the other way on the softer rate path, with spot up about 0.4% at $4,158.17 an ounce and December futures up 0.6% at $4,186.40, after Friday's 0.81% slide to $4,168.10.

The calendar: one data point today, the minutes on Wednesday

This week's US data schedule is thin, which gives the Fed's own words more room to move the tape.

• Monday, 10 a.m. ET: ISM services PMI, forecast around 55.1 against 55.4 in August. S&P Global's flash services reading jumped to 58.7 in September from 56.5, so the risk is to the upside; the prices-paid component is the line that matters for the inflation argument.
• Tuesday: ADP's weekly employment reading, plus the US trade balance, which economists expect to widen for August.
• Wednesday, 2 p.m. ET: minutes of the September FOMC meeting, the week's main event.
• Thursday: initial jobless claims, after last week's 197,000, the lowest since July 18, with the four-week average at 200,000 and continuing claims at 1,701,000.
• Friday: the preliminary University of Michigan consumer sentiment reading, expected to stay near record lows on cost-of-living concerns.

Several Fed officials speak during the week, and earnings season restarts around the edges: PepsiCo, Delta Air Lines, Constellation Brands and Levi Strauss all report.

Why the minutes are the week's real test

The Fed raised rates in September for the first time since 2023, and Chair Kevin Warsh described the move as having removed "a dose of accommodation" rather than as a turn toward restriction. The September projections had a median federal funds rate of 4.1% at the end of both 2026 and 2027 — one more quarter-point increase this year, then a long hold — and lifted the median longer-run neutral estimate to 3.25%, a post-pandemic high. Wednesday's minutes show the range behind that median: how many participants wanted more than one further hike, and how much weight they gave to the energy pass-through now running through the data. A record that reads more hawkish than the dot plot would collide with a futures market that has written October off.

What to watch between now and Wednesday

ISM services at 10 a.m. tells the market whether the economy that produced 29,000 jobs is still expanding briskly in services. The 10-year yield, which closed at 5.281% and has risen five weeks running, tells it whether Friday's equity relief has a bond-market partner. The minutes tell it whether the committee that hiked in September sits anywhere near the market's 22%-to-28% October probability. None of those are predictions — they are the three places this week's information actually arrives.