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EndGame Macro
This Chart Says More About the Economy Than Any Headline
When you look at this lumber chart, the surprising thing isn’t just that prices are falling, it’s how indifferent the market is to the tariff backdrop. A new 10% tariff kicked in on October 14th, 2025, and Canadian lumber is effectively facing a 35% tariff load. In a healthy, growing economy, that kind of supply side tax would have pushed prices sharply higher. But instead, lumber futures slid right back to the same lows we saw a year ago and are now sitting on a clear double bottom.
That price action tells you everything: the market doesn’t believe demand is strong enough for tariffs to matter. Businesses are the ones who actually pay tariffs upfront, and when the consumer is slowing down, those businesses can’t pass the cost along. So futures don’t price in higher costs ahead, they price in weaker demand ahead.
Why Demand Is Overpowering the Tariff Story
The best confirmation comes from the ground level: Home Depot’s own language. They’re saying customers are fatigued, pulling back from home improvement projects, and trading down to cheaper materials. That’s exactly the kind of environment where lumber struggles regardless of tariffs. Big projects get delayed. Renovations get scaled back. Builders order only what they must, not what they want.
When demand is rolling over like that, even a tariff shock gets absorbed by distributors and mills rather than passed on to buyers and the futures market sees that instantly.
How the Chart Fits the Cycle
That’s why this chart looks the way it does. Lumber isn’t responding to the headline or the policy change. It’s responding to the psychological turn in housing and renovation. Futures traders are asking one simple question…how much lumber will America actually need in 2026 if consumers remain cautious and the economic outlook softens?
And their answer is written right there in the price…less than before.
So the chart isn’t ignoring the tariffs. it’s overriding them. It’s saying the slowdown in construction, the hesitation from homeowners, and the fatigue that Home Depot is calling out are stronger forces than tax policy. In a tight demand environment, tariffs don’t lift prices. They just compress margins upstream while futures drift lower toward whatever level the market thinks matches the new, weaker reality.
Credit to @Barchart
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This Chart Says More About the Economy Than Any Headline
When you look at this lumber chart, the surprising thing isn’t just that prices are falling, it’s how indifferent the market is to the tariff backdrop. A new 10% tariff kicked in on October 14th, 2025, and Canadian lumber is effectively facing a 35% tariff load. In a healthy, growing economy, that kind of supply side tax would have pushed prices sharply higher. But instead, lumber futures slid right back to the same lows we saw a year ago and are now sitting on a clear double bottom.
That price action tells you everything: the market doesn’t believe demand is strong enough for tariffs to matter. Businesses are the ones who actually pay tariffs upfront, and when the consumer is slowing down, those businesses can’t pass the cost along. So futures don’t price in higher costs ahead, they price in weaker demand ahead.
Why Demand Is Overpowering the Tariff Story
The best confirmation comes from the ground level: Home Depot’s own language. They’re saying customers are fatigued, pulling back from home improvement projects, and trading down to cheaper materials. That’s exactly the kind of environment where lumber struggles regardless of tariffs. Big projects get delayed. Renovations get scaled back. Builders order only what they must, not what they want.
When demand is rolling over like that, even a tariff shock gets absorbed by distributors and mills rather than passed on to buyers and the futures market sees that instantly.
How the Chart Fits the Cycle
That’s why this chart looks the way it does. Lumber isn’t responding to the headline or the policy change. It’s responding to the psychological turn in housing and renovation. Futures traders are asking one simple question…how much lumber will America actually need in 2026 if consumers remain cautious and the economic outlook softens?
And their answer is written right there in the price…less than before.
So the chart isn’t ignoring the tariffs. it’s overriding them. It’s saying the slowdown in construction, the hesitation from homeowners, and the fatigue that Home Depot is calling out are stronger forces than tax policy. In a tight demand environment, tariffs don’t lift prices. They just compress margins upstream while futures drift lower toward whatever level the market thinks matches the new, weaker reality.
Credit to @Barchart
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Quiver Quantitative
$GOOG has now risen 14% since this post, while the market has fallen.
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$GOOG has now risen 14% since this post, while the market has fallen.
BREAKING: Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway just filed a portfolio update.
They opened a new $4.3B position in Google, $GOOG.
Full holdings up on Quiver, link below. https://t.co/RoJTmS5xhJ tweet
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Quiver Quantitative
Markets are now giving a 75% chance of a rate cut at the next Fed meeting. https://t.co/IZiud12Z1q
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Markets are now giving a 75% chance of a rate cut at the next Fed meeting. https://t.co/IZiud12Z1q
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Offshore
Video
EndGame Macro
The College Promise Is Breaking Down
What’s happening in the job market right now is the unraveling of a story we were all told for decades. A record share of unemployed Americans now have college degrees. Recent grads are running unemployment rates higher than the national average. And the shock for a lot of people is that this isn’t happening in soft majors, it’s happening in fields that were once considered bulletproof.
College hasn’t kept up with the world it’s supposed to prepare people for. Schools expanded enrollment, raised prices, and kept telling students that any degree was a ticket to stability. But employers stopped treating degrees as a guarantee. The economy shifted, automation accelerated, and suddenly a lot of credentialed young adults are entering a market where the entry level jobs that used to absorb them just aren’t there anymore.
How Tech Degrees Lost Their Aura
For years, computer science and computer engineering were the safest bets in higher education. These were the majors where you graduated on Friday and started your job on Monday. Then the world changed. Tech massively over hired during the pandemic boom and spent the next two years cutting staff and freezing junior roles. At the same time, AI began swallowing the exact kind of grunt work that used to justify hiring large cohorts of new engineers. And because remote work went global, a new grad in the U.S. is now competing with equally strong talent abroad at a fraction of the cost.
The result is a strange moment where the degrees that once symbolized certainty now come with real risk. The demand for great engineers isn’t gone but the path in is narrower, steeper, and far more selective. The middle of the market has been hollowed out.
Where Parents Should Focus Now
If your kid is thinking about college, the question you should be asking is “what kinds of work will still need a human being in ten years?”
Jobs that involve touching the real world…bodies, buildings, energy systems, machines aren’t going anywhere. Healthcare roles, skilled trades, infrastructure work, and anything tied to physical safety or compliance will stay in demand. AI can help these jobs, but it can’t replace the hands, judgment, and accountability behind them.
Then there are the jobs that rely on deeply human skills like empathy, trust, relationship building. Mental health work, education, certain advisory roles, coaching, and specialized care. These are fields where people don’t want an algorithm; they want another human being.
And finally, jobs that own problems, not tasks. AI can handle tasks. It still struggles with messy realities: coordinating teams, managing crises, understanding context, balancing tradeoffs. Operations, logistics, product work, cybersecurity, and technical sales fall into this category.
The Takeaway
College can still be the right move. But the days of go anywhere, study anything, and everything will work out are over. The world is moving too fast for that. If anything, the labor market is telling us what colleges won’t that is that the value isn’t in the credential, it’s in the skills you leave with and whether those skills fit the shape of the economy that’s actually emerging.
This moment is a sign that the old pipeline has broken, and families need a new way to think about education, work, and what it means to build a durable future.
tweet
The College Promise Is Breaking Down
What’s happening in the job market right now is the unraveling of a story we were all told for decades. A record share of unemployed Americans now have college degrees. Recent grads are running unemployment rates higher than the national average. And the shock for a lot of people is that this isn’t happening in soft majors, it’s happening in fields that were once considered bulletproof.
College hasn’t kept up with the world it’s supposed to prepare people for. Schools expanded enrollment, raised prices, and kept telling students that any degree was a ticket to stability. But employers stopped treating degrees as a guarantee. The economy shifted, automation accelerated, and suddenly a lot of credentialed young adults are entering a market where the entry level jobs that used to absorb them just aren’t there anymore.
How Tech Degrees Lost Their Aura
For years, computer science and computer engineering were the safest bets in higher education. These were the majors where you graduated on Friday and started your job on Monday. Then the world changed. Tech massively over hired during the pandemic boom and spent the next two years cutting staff and freezing junior roles. At the same time, AI began swallowing the exact kind of grunt work that used to justify hiring large cohorts of new engineers. And because remote work went global, a new grad in the U.S. is now competing with equally strong talent abroad at a fraction of the cost.
The result is a strange moment where the degrees that once symbolized certainty now come with real risk. The demand for great engineers isn’t gone but the path in is narrower, steeper, and far more selective. The middle of the market has been hollowed out.
Where Parents Should Focus Now
If your kid is thinking about college, the question you should be asking is “what kinds of work will still need a human being in ten years?”
Jobs that involve touching the real world…bodies, buildings, energy systems, machines aren’t going anywhere. Healthcare roles, skilled trades, infrastructure work, and anything tied to physical safety or compliance will stay in demand. AI can help these jobs, but it can’t replace the hands, judgment, and accountability behind them.
Then there are the jobs that rely on deeply human skills like empathy, trust, relationship building. Mental health work, education, certain advisory roles, coaching, and specialized care. These are fields where people don’t want an algorithm; they want another human being.
And finally, jobs that own problems, not tasks. AI can handle tasks. It still struggles with messy realities: coordinating teams, managing crises, understanding context, balancing tradeoffs. Operations, logistics, product work, cybersecurity, and technical sales fall into this category.
The Takeaway
College can still be the right move. But the days of go anywhere, study anything, and everything will work out are over. The world is moving too fast for that. If anything, the labor market is telling us what colleges won’t that is that the value isn’t in the credential, it’s in the skills you leave with and whether those skills fit the shape of the economy that’s actually emerging.
This moment is a sign that the old pipeline has broken, and families need a new way to think about education, work, and what it means to build a durable future.
JUST IN: Americans with college degrees now make up a record 25% of all unemployed. tweet
Offshore
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Quiver Quantitative
We are seeing some absolutely massive spending in the Tennessee congressional race taking place next week.
It's a deep-red district, but Democrats and Republicans are both spending millions on ads.
You can track the spending on Quiver. https://t.co/kSx3BNxbEi
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We are seeing some absolutely massive spending in the Tennessee congressional race taking place next week.
It's a deep-red district, but Democrats and Republicans are both spending millions on ads.
You can track the spending on Quiver. https://t.co/kSx3BNxbEi
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Offshore
Video
App Economy Insights
🔥 Holy sh*t Black Friday is here!
📊 How They Make Money Premium.
👀 50% off — $199 → $99/year today.
Unlock thousands of visuals.
Weekly breakdowns and deep dives. https://t.co/hPl4bDyAoo
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🔥 Holy sh*t Black Friday is here!
📊 How They Make Money Premium.
👀 50% off — $199 → $99/year today.
Unlock thousands of visuals.
Weekly breakdowns and deep dives. https://t.co/hPl4bDyAoo
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Offshore
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WealthyReadings
🚨 $NVO hits a new yearly low after disappointing data from its Alzheimer’s trial.
Everyone told you to buy the dip. At $90. At $80. They’ll keep saying it. They'll evetually be right. Broken clocks are right twice a day.
At what costs? Financially and mentally?
Cheap usually gets cheaper. And nobody tells you to be patient.
These trials were supposed to be the next big catalyst, the lever of growth many were banking on. That wasn’t analysis… that was investing on hope. Now many are hoping their shares will magically bounce.
Impatience is expensive. Discipline isn’t.
I'll buy $NVO one day. I am convinced of it. But it isn't today and won't be tomorrow. It will be when we can invest on data and an uptrend, not hope.
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🚨 $NVO hits a new yearly low after disappointing data from its Alzheimer’s trial.
Everyone told you to buy the dip. At $90. At $80. They’ll keep saying it. They'll evetually be right. Broken clocks are right twice a day.
At what costs? Financially and mentally?
Cheap usually gets cheaper. And nobody tells you to be patient.
These trials were supposed to be the next big catalyst, the lever of growth many were banking on. That wasn’t analysis… that was investing on hope. Now many are hoping their shares will magically bounce.
Impatience is expensive. Discipline isn’t.
I'll buy $NVO one day. I am convinced of it. But it isn't today and won't be tomorrow. It will be when we can invest on data and an uptrend, not hope.
$NVO is NOT cheap and NOT a buy right now.
GLP-1 was supposed to drive growth but market share is slipping in favor of competition. Growth guidance was cut twice and there are no near-term catalysts nor clarity on what the future will be like.
Lower growth → lower cash generation → lower multiples.
This is how the market works. Comparing today's valuation to the last two years' is like comparing apples to bananas. Conditions changed.
$NVO is a fantastic company. Just not a great stock, yet. There are no reasons to rush any purchase, better be patient. tweet
Offshore
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WealthyReadings
$BABA new AI-centric app just crossed 10M+ downloads in its first week.
If $BABA manages to convert retail momentum into B2C monetization with subscriptions, in-app purchases & co within its massive ecosystem, well…
Then let’s just say: I’m very happy to be invested.
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$BABA new AI-centric app just crossed 10M+ downloads in its first week.
If $BABA manages to convert retail momentum into B2C monetization with subscriptions, in-app purchases & co within its massive ecosystem, well…
Then let’s just say: I’m very happy to be invested.
🚨Just in: $BABA is building its own “everything AI app” powered by its in-house model, Qwen.
This app should be fully AI-powered and integrate all features of Chinese super-aps, with similar ambition to American companies but much bigger potential due to this centralisation.
Chinese super apps already include social media, e-commerce, banking, entertainment & more. This gives $BABA access to more data & agentic capabilities than what can be done in the west with a decentralised ecosystem.
The focus is the same though: to tap on consumers and build profitable B2C AI services and not only monetize their AI models and capacities through compute usage or API calls.
As a reminder, Qwen is widely used aronud the enterprise world and known as one of the best opened source AI model. tweet
Offshore
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EndGame Macro
Dallas Manufacturing Shows a Surge on Paper, Weakness Underneath
The Dallas manufacturing report looks upbeat on the surface with production jumps, capacity use jumps, shipments jump. If you only skim the headline, you walk away thinking Texas factories are gearing up for a real expansion. But when you actually read through the details, a very different story appears. Firms can push out more product, sure, but almost every signal tied to demand, sentiment, and financial health is pointing the other way. It’s the kind of pattern you see late in a cycle, not at the beginning of one.
Production at 20.5 is a real move, no denying it. But new orders at 4.8, only barely above their long run average, don’t support a story of booming demand. And the growth rate of orders is still negative at –1.3 which tells you order books are shrinking, just at a slower pace. Inventory levels keep falling (–14.3), which isn’t what you see when firms expect strong demand ahead. And the backlog is still firmly negative (–6.6), meaning companies are clearing more than they’re getting. That’s not expansion pressure, that’s slack.
What really gives the game away is sentiment. General business activity drops deeper into the red (–10.4) and the company outlook index falls again (–6.3). It’s hard to call something a pickup when the people running the businesses say the environment is getting worse.
The Labor and Margin Picture Is the Tell
Employment is basically flat (1.2). Firms aren’t hiring into this so called surge, they’re stretching the people they already have. Hours worked jump (9.9), and the special questions show something even more telling…only 27% of businesses plan to hire, the lowest share since this question was introduced. And the number of firms saying they’re overstaffed is the highest yet. That’s not a labor shortage. That’s hesitation. That’s a sector unsure if demand will justify the payroll six months from now.
Margins underline the same fragility. More firms saw margin declines than increases over the last six months, and that weakness was sharpest for retailers (53% reported declines). Raw material costs keep climbing (35.3) while prices received for finished goods (10.8) aren’t keeping up. Wage growth is stable but not strong. This is what it looks like when inflation is slowing on the surface but cost pressures haven’t really gone away and pricing power has.
You also see the strain in the comments. Some firms say demand has fallen in half, others describe distributors going out of business, project delays into 2026, imported parts undercutting domestic production, and a consumer market stuck in uncertainty. None of that sounds like an economy gaining strength. It sounds like firms bracing.
And yet, future expectations look positive on paper. Future production at 33.7, future orders at 39.2, future activity at 11 all green. But look at future capital expenditures: they collapse from 26.8 to 12.9, far below average. That’s the part executives can’t talk up. If they really believed the next six months would be strong, capex would be moving the other way. It’s not.
Where This Leaves Us
If you put the whole thing together, the jump in output, the flat employment, the soft orders, the margin pressure, the cautious comments, and the collapsing capex plans you end up with a pretty clear picture. This isn’t a sign of a manufacturing revival. It’s a sign of firms squeezing what they can out of existing capacity while the underlying demand picture stays weak. They’re hoping things get better in 2026, but they’re not betting on it.
And that’s the contradiction in this report. The headline says acceleration, but the internals point to a system that’s still slowing, one that’s leaning heavily on productivity gains, longer hours, and leaner inventories to keep numbers in the green. It’s late cycle behavior dressed up as momentum.
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Dallas Manufacturing Shows a Surge on Paper, Weakness Underneath
The Dallas manufacturing report looks upbeat on the surface with production jumps, capacity use jumps, shipments jump. If you only skim the headline, you walk away thinking Texas factories are gearing up for a real expansion. But when you actually read through the details, a very different story appears. Firms can push out more product, sure, but almost every signal tied to demand, sentiment, and financial health is pointing the other way. It’s the kind of pattern you see late in a cycle, not at the beginning of one.
Production at 20.5 is a real move, no denying it. But new orders at 4.8, only barely above their long run average, don’t support a story of booming demand. And the growth rate of orders is still negative at –1.3 which tells you order books are shrinking, just at a slower pace. Inventory levels keep falling (–14.3), which isn’t what you see when firms expect strong demand ahead. And the backlog is still firmly negative (–6.6), meaning companies are clearing more than they’re getting. That’s not expansion pressure, that’s slack.
What really gives the game away is sentiment. General business activity drops deeper into the red (–10.4) and the company outlook index falls again (–6.3). It’s hard to call something a pickup when the people running the businesses say the environment is getting worse.
The Labor and Margin Picture Is the Tell
Employment is basically flat (1.2). Firms aren’t hiring into this so called surge, they’re stretching the people they already have. Hours worked jump (9.9), and the special questions show something even more telling…only 27% of businesses plan to hire, the lowest share since this question was introduced. And the number of firms saying they’re overstaffed is the highest yet. That’s not a labor shortage. That’s hesitation. That’s a sector unsure if demand will justify the payroll six months from now.
Margins underline the same fragility. More firms saw margin declines than increases over the last six months, and that weakness was sharpest for retailers (53% reported declines). Raw material costs keep climbing (35.3) while prices received for finished goods (10.8) aren’t keeping up. Wage growth is stable but not strong. This is what it looks like when inflation is slowing on the surface but cost pressures haven’t really gone away and pricing power has.
You also see the strain in the comments. Some firms say demand has fallen in half, others describe distributors going out of business, project delays into 2026, imported parts undercutting domestic production, and a consumer market stuck in uncertainty. None of that sounds like an economy gaining strength. It sounds like firms bracing.
And yet, future expectations look positive on paper. Future production at 33.7, future orders at 39.2, future activity at 11 all green. But look at future capital expenditures: they collapse from 26.8 to 12.9, far below average. That’s the part executives can’t talk up. If they really believed the next six months would be strong, capex would be moving the other way. It’s not.
Where This Leaves Us
If you put the whole thing together, the jump in output, the flat employment, the soft orders, the margin pressure, the cautious comments, and the collapsing capex plans you end up with a pretty clear picture. This isn’t a sign of a manufacturing revival. It’s a sign of firms squeezing what they can out of existing capacity while the underlying demand picture stays weak. They’re hoping things get better in 2026, but they’re not betting on it.
And that’s the contradiction in this report. The headline says acceleration, but the internals point to a system that’s still slowing, one that’s leaning heavily on productivity gains, longer hours, and leaner inventories to keep numbers in the green. It’s late cycle behavior dressed up as momentum.
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