The macro data docket’s pretty light this week, which is fine by me notwithstanding I tend to get bored and, as a consequence, antsy when the calendar’s empty.

Had last week’s NFP headline matched consensus, the September FOMC minutes, due Wednesday, would carry meaningful weight. Alas, the BLS’s hiring tally undershot every estimate, recasting the US labor market narrative for the second time in two months, this time with the effect of attenuating rate-hike urgency.

Between the underwhelming read on headline hiring, downward revisions and the coolest monthly pace of wage growth this year, the bar for a second consecutive rate increase from the Kevin Warsh Fed is now quite high, particularly given the proximity of the midterm elections.

Seen through that lens, the account of last month’s policy meeting is old news. Importantly, John Williams and Philip Jefferson both said last week, just not in so many words, that the Fed isn’t likely to hike rates again straightaway.

“In the wake of the employment report, the probability of an October hike slipped to effectively a 1-in-4 chance, odds that we’ll argue are too low given Warsh’s objective of containing forward inflation expectations and reestablishing households’ assumption of price stability,” BMO’s Ian Lyngen and Vail Hartman said. “Nonetheless, the jobs update did raise the bar for September’s CPI to be hot enough to justify an October rate hike.”

I appreciate that gainfully employed rates strategists are compelled to avoid trafficking in abrasive political color, so allow me — someone who doesn’t have to worry about rankling any higher-ups — to intercede. I don’t doubt Warsh wants to keep inflation expectations anchored and reestablish households’ faith in the central bank, but let’s not kid ourselves: He’s the least independent Fed chair in the modern history of the institution. Everyone knows that. Including and especially Kevin.

The FOMC minutes will be joined this week by ISM services and the preliminary read on University of Michigan sentiment for October. Maybe those aren’t “top-tier” releases in a strict sense (assuming there’s a strict definition of the “top-tier” distinction), but they’re consequential.

The ISM readout will be eyed first and foremost for evidence of cost pressures (recall that the ISM manufacturing price gauge rose sharply in last week’s update), but also for the demand impulse at a time when some worry robust consumer spending could exacerbate the inflationary read-across from war-related supply shocks.

The figure above gives you some context for the price gauges. Many observers argue it’s just a matter of time before record-high diesel costs begin to show up in core inflation. Upside on the ISM services price index this week would be seen as a harbinger in that regard.

As to Friday’s Michigan sentiment release, what can you say? It’ll be rough. It’s really just a matter of whether Trump breaks his own records for all-time (or what may as well be all-time) lows on the headline and both component measures.

Take a moment to read the annotations on the familiar figure below, which shows you the average of the two marquee national mood metrics.

Suffice to say — and I’m chuckling as I write this — plagues and near-double-digit inflation ain’t got shit on Trump when it comes to engendering widespread public disaffection.

Consensus is looking for 47.7 from the Michigan headline on October 9. Recall that Conference Board confidence for September was just awful, where that means the worst since 2014.

Over the weekend, Trump again promised to hand out $5,000 to every adult citizen if Republicans retain control of the House and the Senate next month. That’s possible, he said, because the country’s “taking in massive amounts of money through tariffs and record-setting economic success.”

If Democrats win either chamber in November, Trump warned, America will face “an economic depression much like 1929.”