Brazil’s presidential runoff ended Sunday with Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva returned for a fourth term, 51.8 percent to 48.2 percent, and with the losing candidate refusing to accept the count. Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, son of the former president imprisoned for attempting a coup after the last election, said it is impossible to recognise the results and that he will request their annulment. The margin was nearly 4.4 million votes. A contested result in Brazil is the day’s central fact.

Washington opened the week quietly by comparison. The Federal Register carried 99 documents and no presidential documents. The Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit filed no opinions. One new complaint reached the district court docket, and one of the five watched cases moved.

The administration and the rule of law

No presidential documents appeared in the October 25 and 26 window, a finding about the calendar rather than a gap. Of the 99 documents, eight were final rules, five were proposed rules and 86 were notices, and most of the notices are the routine filings that make up an ordinary Monday: information collections, advisory committee meetings, exchange fee schedules.

The document with the widest reach is a notice. The Social Security Administration set the 2027 cost-of-living adjustment at 3.6 percent, effective December 2026, and put the 2025 national average wage index at $72,800.33 (Cost-of-Living Increase and Other Determinations for 2027). Both figures affect other program parameters, the notice says, and the benefit increase is effective December 2026.

Treasury proposed regulations to carry out Subtitle C of the Comprehensive Outbound Investment National Security Act, codified at Title VIII of the Defense Production Act. The rule would require United States persons to notify Treasury of certain transactions involving foreign persons in notifiable technologies and would prohibit other transactions involving prohibited technologies, with comments open through December 7 (Outbound Investment Security Program Regulations). The same morning, the trade representative proposed to extend the suspension of the Section 301 action over China’s targeting of the maritime, logistics and shipbuilding sectors by two months, through January 9, 2027, to allow further negotiation, and invited comment (Request for Comments on Further Suspension of Section 301 Action: China’s Targeting of the Maritime, Logistics, and Shipbuilding Sectors for Dominance).

The Federal Communications Commission finalized rules that let consumers revoke consent for robocalls while keeping the calls they want. A caller may treat a revocation request as applying only to the specific category of informational robocalls to which it was directed, and may designate an exclusive means of revocation. The exemption from the consent requirement for financial institutions widens so banks can more easily alert customers to fraud, and the rule takes effect November 25 (Enhancing the Ability of Consumers To Control the Robocalls). A companion proposal, with comments through December 28, asks whether to shorten the time callers have to honor a revocation, to require two-way texting, to require a single method that revokes all consent, and how to treat affiliates (Modernizing the Ability of Consumers To Control Robocalls).

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission amended its rules so that reactor applicants may rely on prior Department of Energy or Department of War authorizations of demonstration reactors when they demonstrate safety functions, effective November 25 (NRC Reviews of Reactor Designs Previously Authorized by U.S. Department of Energy or Department of War). The Department of Homeland Security ratified civil penalties that had been assessed under interim regulations later adopted as final (Ratification of Civil Penalties). The Administrative Conference of the United States opened a comment period through December 28 on how agencies receive, publicize and respond to public comments in rulemaking (Processing Public Comments in Agency Rulemaking; Request for Comments).

The courts

The Supreme Court and the D.C. Circuit each filed no opinions in the window. One new complaint was docketed in the District of Columbia on October 25: Twin Valley Coffee LLC v. United States Small Business Administration, 1:26-cv-03736. CourtListener refused this edition’s fetch of the docket, so the case is recorded here by name, court and filing date only.

Of the five watched dockets, Beatty v. Trump recorded one filing in the window, ECF 111 on October 25. The pack counts the entry and does not carry its text. Phang v. Blanche, MSW Media, Inc. v. Department of Justice, D.C. Preservation League v. Department of the Interior and the consolidated Phang appeal in the D.C. Circuit recorded nothing.

Markets

Friday’s close is still the board for the equity indexes, because no session has been held since. The S&P 500 finished at 7,623.68, down 39.75 points or 0.52 percent; the Nasdaq Composite at 25,955.342, down 53.517 or 0.21 percent; and the Dow Jones Industrial Average at 52,215.16, down 652.82 or 1.23 percent, all as of October 23. Live prints this morning, stamped between 6:50 and 7:00 a.m. ET, put the VIX at 19.72, up 0.27; the ten-year yield at 4.986 percent; gold at $4,025.60 an ounce, up $17.70; front-month WTI crude at $101.02 a barrel, down $2.25 or 2.18 percent; and the dollar index at 101.854, up 0.044.

Treasury’s official curve for October 23 ran 4.69 percent at two years, 5.00 at ten and 5.33 at thirty, four basis points above October 22 at every point, with the 2s10s spread holding at +0.31.

Total public debt outstanding was $40,444,342,709,389 on October 22, up $30,703,697,083 from the previous business day. Debt held by the public was $32,597,664,070,880, and the intragovernmental share was $7,846,678,638,509.

The economy

September’s consumer price index came in at 336.940 on the 1982-84 base, up from 334.980 in August and 333.918 in July. The one-month move was 1.96 index points, about 0.59 percent, roughly twice August’s 0.32 percent. Unemployment rose to 4.2 percent in September from 4.1 in August and July. Nonfarm payrolls totaled 159,044 thousand, a gain of 29,000 over August’s 159,015 thousand. Taken together, the three readings describe rising prices and a weakening labor market at the same time.

Elections and the midterms

On Monday morning Polymarket priced the House at 92.0 percent Democratic on $997,518 of twenty-four-hour volume and 8.5 percent Republican on $1,140,878, and the Senate at 64.5 percent Democratic on $123,777 and 35.5 percent Republican on $86,727.

The balance-of-power event priced the combinations separately: a Democratic sweep at 65.5 percent on $302,726, a Republican Senate with a Democratic House at 26.5 percent on $106,860, a Republican sweep at 7.5 percent on $164,049, and a Democratic Senate with a Republican House at 0.9 percent on $335,660. That last row carries the most volume in the table and the least probability, which is worth naming before anyone reads volume as conviction.

In the state races, Polymarket put Democrat James Talarico at 64.5 percent in Texas against Republican Ken Paxton at 35.5, Democrat Sherrod Brown at 68.5 in Ohio, Democrat Abdul El-Sayed at 68.5 in Michigan, Republican Greg Abbott at 65.3 for Texas governor, and Democrat Amy Acton at 82.5 for Ohio governor.

These are the venues’ prices, not this publication’s view, and a thin book is not a forecast.

The world

Outside the United States the story that moved was Brazil’s. Lula took 51.8 percent to Flávio Bolsonaro’s 48.2 after trailing in the first round, and abstention fell from 21 percent to 19. The president is 81 and will be 85 when his term ends in 2030. Bolsonaro is a senator and the son of Jair Bolsonaro, who is serving 27 years for attempting a coup after the 2022 election.

Bolsonaro said, “It is impossible to recognise the results. I am going to request the annulment of these elections,” and he called a last-minute two-hour extension of voting “unacceptable” and a “dirty trick.” Lula said, “This country will not accept being anyone’s backyard.” The account gives no inauguration date (Brazil’s Lula clinches election victory as Bolsonaro rejects results). The request sends the dispute to the courts; the last Brazilian election dispute ended with the former president convicted of attempting a coup.

Sources

Market, yield, debt and prediction-market figures were collected at 06:00 CT on October 26, 2026 from CNBC’s quote service (October 23 close for the indexes), the U.S. Treasury daily yield curve (October 23), FiscalData (October 22) and Polymarket’s Gamma API (twenty-four-hour volume). The BLS public API supplied the three series named above. World-news headlines came from five feeds; the Brazil story was fetched and is linked above.

PRH | huffmanwrites.org | © Philip Huffman