The energy ceasefire announced at the weekend is over, and it ended where it began: over oil. Russia’s defence ministry said Ukraine attempted a large-scale attack on a refinery at Ryazan, about 180 kilometres south of Moscow, and that a “fire broke out after drone debris fell onto the refinery site.” Regional officials told the Guardian the plant had been targeted by 69 drones and four Flamingo cruise missiles, and images from the site showed flames. Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, told the Financial Times that strikes on Russian refineries would resume, and Al Jazeera reports he had said Kyiv was “done” with an arrangement he first learned about from the news. Moscow answered with what the Guardian calls a record overnight swarm of drones over central Ukraine and with hypersonic and ballistic missiles aimed at power plants, leaving cities including Kyiv without power and water for hours.

The arrangement had been announced at the weekend, unilaterally, and it did not survive the week. The President had demanded that Zelenskyy stop hitting refineries, attributing a global rise in diesel prices to the strikes. The Ukrainian position has been that a halt is worth something only if Russia stops hitting the grid, which it did not. The markets repriced risk without repricing the war: the Nasdaq Composite closed at 26,692.868 on October 14, down 511.512 points or 1.88 percent, the S&P 500 at 7,718.94, down 1.11 percent, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 51,621.48, down 0.09 percent. Gold was $4,175.10 an ounce as of 6:50 a.m. Eastern this morning, up 1.64 percent, the dollar index 102.042, down 0.50 percent, and the 10-year note yielded 5.081 percent as of 7:00 a.m. Eastern, down 10.9 basis points.

The administration and the rule of law

The Register’s Wednesday and Thursday issues together carry 204 documents: one presidential document, 23 rules, 21 proposed rules, and 159 notices. The presidential document is the committee of inquiry into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa D. Cook, published Wednesday at 91 FR 65435; yesterday’s edition covered its membership, its November 5 hearing, and its authority.

The window’s most consequential proposal came from an agency that rarely makes news. The Federal Maritime Commission published Investigation Into Conditions Affecting Shipping in the Foreign Trade and Denial of Entry of Vessels Into Spanish Ports and Proposed Remedies To Meet or Adjust the Unfavorable Conditions at 91 FR 65515. It proposes “a per-voyage fee on all Spanish vessels of $200,000 and restrictions on the import of certain Spanish goods into the United States,” on the Commission’s finding that “the Government of Spain has unduly impaired the access of U.S. flag vessels to trade between foreign ports.” A two-hundred-thousand-dollar charge on every voyage by a NATO ally’s merchant fleet is a tariff by another name, levied by an independent commission under a statute written for shipping disputes. Comments close December 14.

Two tax and benefits proposals are worth naming. The Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service published Premium Tax Credit at 91 FR 65494, an NPRM at REG-101576-26 that would amend the regulations regarding “an individual taxpayer’s eligibility for a premium tax credit (PTC), the computation of a PTC, and an individual’s tax liability due to excess advance payments of the PTC.” Written comments are due November 30, and the agencies have scheduled a telephonic public hearing for December 8. The Office of Personnel Management issued a direct final rule revising the federal Family and Medical Leave Act regulations at 91 FR 65437, effective December 14 unless significant adverse comments arrive by November 16; it makes “virtually all Federal civilian service and certain honorable active military service qualify for determining FMLA eligibility,” permits leave provided outside title 5 to be substituted for unpaid FMLA leave, and excludes certain Veterans Health Administration employees from title 5 coverage.

The Department of Transportation delayed the effective date of its September 3 rule on airline delay and cancellation categories, at 91 FR 56588, until February 1, 2027, at 91 FR 65456. It is a one-page document. And the CDC published an order under Sections 362 and 365 of the Public Health Service Act at 91 FR 65556 continuing the suspension of the right to introduce certain persons from countries where a quarantinable communicable disease exists. It was issued October 11 and runs through 4:59 p.m. Eastern on November 10, and the Director may amend or rescind it sooner.

The courts

The Supreme Court filed one opinion in the window, on October 14: FCC v. Brown, No. 26A476. The pack carries the case name and the docket number and nothing about the holding, and the Court’s own docket could not be read for this edition, so this report states the filing and not its substance. The D.C. Circuit filed nothing, a quiet window worth naming as quiet.

The district court in Washington took fourteen new entries, all docketed October 14. Two are criminal, and each appears twice in the feed: United States v. Hamilton, No. 1:26-cr-00240, and United States v. Green, No. 1:26-cr-00239. Among the civil complaints, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. Kushner and Ticket Policy Forum, Inc. v. District of Columbia are new; Alvarado Rivera v. Mullin and Chouhan v. Mullin name the same defendant in two complaints filed the same day, and Alo v. Rubio follows the Doe A. v. Rubio filing of October 13. Chang v. United States Agency for International Development, Doe v. Islamic Republic of Iran, Marwaha v. Edison Electric Institute, Wilson v. Equifax Information Services, LLC, and an action titled simply v. New Venture Fund complete the window. As before, the pack carries names and numbers and nothing about the claims.

Of the watched dockets, one moved. Beatty v. Trump, the Kennedy Center case at No. 1:25-cv-04480, recorded five entries on October 14: ECF 105, 106, and 107, plus two minute entries. It had reached ECF 104 on October 13. Neither Phang v. Blanche, No. 1:26-cv-01417, nor its appeal at D.C. Cir. No. 26-5299 recorded a filing.

Markets

Wednesday’s equity session closed lower across the board, and the losses were concentrated where valuations are longest. The S&P 500 finished at 7,718.94, down 86.51 points or 1.11 percent; the Nasdaq Composite at 26,692.868, down 511.512 points or 1.88 percent; the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 51,621.48, down 48.62 points or 0.09 percent, each as of October 14. The CBOE volatility index stood at 17.59, up 4.27 percent as of 6:59 a.m. Eastern this morning, the dollar index at 102.042, down 0.50 percent as of 7:00 a.m., gold at $4,175.10 an ounce, up $67.20 or 1.64 percent as of 6:50 a.m., and West Texas Intermediate at $95.07 a barrel, down two cents, as of the same hour.

The Treasury’s daily curve added its October 14 row. It reads 4.82 percent at two years, 5.19 percent at ten, and 5.52 percent at thirty on October 14, against 4.79, 5.21, and 5.56 the day before. The short end rose three basis points while the long end fell, so the two-to-ten spread narrowed from 42 basis points to 37. In the cash market this morning the 10-year yielded 5.081 percent as of 7:00 a.m. Eastern, 10.9 basis points below Wednesday’s official close. Equities fell, gold rose, the dollar slipped, and the long bond rallied at once, which is the shape of a flight to safety rather than a growth scare.

The federal debt stood at $40,343,879,238,036 on October 13, up $42.40 billion. The pack’s comparison date is October 9, so that increase covers four calendar days. Debt held by the public was $32.48 trillion of the total, and $7.86 trillion was intragovernmental.

The economy

The window produced one new reading, and it was the wrong one. The consumer price index for all urban consumers was 336.940 in September, against 334.980 in August and 333.918 in July, a monthly rise of about 0.6 percent against about 0.3 percent the month before. The unemployment rate was 4.2 percent in September, a tenth of a point above August and July. Total nonfarm payrolls were 159,044 thousand in September, against 159,015 thousand in August: a gain of 29,000 jobs.

Taken together the three series describe an economy in which prices are accelerating while hiring has nearly stopped. The index has risen 3.02 points in two months, and payroll growth of 29,000 in a month is below the level needed to hold the unemployment rate steady, which is why that rate rose. A 10-year note yielding above five percent is the market’s reading of the same arithmetic, and this morning’s rally in the long end is a bet that growth, not inflation, is the nearer problem.

Elections and the midterms

The midterm board traded heavily and moved at the top. On Polymarket, the House market held the Democratic Party at 90.5 percent on $562,966 of 24-hour volume, more than three times yesterday’s book and the largest in today’s pack; the Republican Party stood at 9.5 percent on $38,595. The Senate market put the Republican Party at 36.5 percent on $74,356 and the Democratic Party at 63.5 percent on $47,381.

The balance-of-power market now leads with a Democratic sweep at 62.5 percent on $246,988, followed by a Republican Senate with a Democratic House at 28.5 percent on $53,325 and a Democratic Senate with a Republican House at 1.0 percent on $48,709. That ordering is new. Yesterday the same market’s largest book sat on the outcome priced at 1.1 percent, so the money has moved from the tails toward the modal result.

The conditional market tied to the Strait of Hormuz has repriced further against agreement. Who wins the Senate pending a Hormuz agreement by October 23 gives no agreement 95.4 percent on $165,731, against 90.7 percent in yesterday’s edition, with a Democratic Senate under an agreement at 2.4 percent on $127,605 and a Republican Senate under one at 2.1 percent on $47,563. In Texas, James Talarico holds 62.5 percent on $38,677. Among governors’ races the board carries Nevada, where Aaron Ford is 52.0 percent on $36,033. These are the venues’ prices and not this site’s view.

The world

Kyiv’s decision to resume the refinery campaign is the week’s turn, and the reasoning behind it is transactional. Al Jazeera reports that Washington had pressed Ukraine to halt the strikes, pairing a suspension of attacks with a deal to purchase 1.8 million tonnes of diesel from Russia. The Guardian gives the President’s stated reason: he has demanded that Zelenskyy stop attacking the refineries, “claiming it was the cause of a global rise in the price of diesel fuel.” Zelenskyy told the Financial Times, as Al Jazeera reports, that strikes on Russian refineries would resume.

The Russian response was aimed at the grid. The Guardian reports that hypersonic and ballistic missiles struck key Ukrainian power plants overnight, leaving cities including Kyiv without power and water for hours, and that the drone swarm was a record for the war. Ukraine’s own account of the interception picture is not in this edition’s sources, so the report does not carry one. What is verifiable is the sequence: a halt announced from Washington without the parties’ public confirmation, days in which Russia kept striking Ukraine’s power grid while Ukraine held off the refineries, and a resumption announced by Kyiv on Wednesday that Moscow answered within hours.

The venues price the wider region as though none of this were happening. A ceasefire between the United States and Iran continuing through October 31 stands at 79.5 percent on $242,102, and an Israel-Iran ceasefire through the same date at 84.5 percent on $115,521. Traffic through the Strait of Hormuz returning to normal by October 31 is priced at 0.9 percent on $106,220. Elsewhere on the board, Brazil’s presidential election prices Flávio Bolsonaro at 80.4 percent on $478,304 against Lula at 19.5 percent on $508,241, the two heaviest books the pack returned today.

Sources

Fetched for this edition

Court dockets

Market and election prices

Data

  • Bureau of Labor Statistics, public data API, series CUUR0000SA0, LNS14000000, and CES0000000001.
  • The U.S. Treasury daily yield curve, the Treasury’s debt-to-the-penny figures, and the CNBC quote service carry no link in this edition: their endpoints were read by the collector, which did not record a URL for them, and this report does not construct one.

PRH | huffmanwrites.org | © Philip Huffman