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Investors will seek clues about the health of the US economy in the coming week following worrisome labour market reports and technology-led turbulence that has knocked the stock market off record highs. The S&P 500 ended on Friday with a weekly decline after three straight weeks of gains. The benchmark index was last down about 2.4% from its all-time closing peak on October 28 even after a generally strong third-quarter earnings season for large US companies. This week, concerns about expensive equity valuations, especially for high-flying stocks linked to enthusiasm over artificial intelligence, were exacerbated by tepid jobs data, including a report that showed surging layoff announcements from US employers.Alternative data released by private sector bodies have become more important for investors because the US federal shutdown that began on October 1 has limited government releases."We're not getting a lot of economic data," said Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise Financial. "At current valuations and the kind of gains that we've seen... investors are just starting to be a little bit more cautious. I don't think that is bad, but it is coming at a time where there is growing uncertainty around the pace of growth in the economy."Investors were gauging whether the pullback in equities represented profit-taking and a healthy reset after an extended climb, or the start of a more severe slide. Fears that stocks are in an "AI bubble" have kept Wall Street on edge, with the benchmark S&P 500 up 14% year-to-date and 35% since its low for the year in April.The S&P 500 technology sector, which has led the bull market that began more than three years ago, has been hit harder in this latest drawdown, falling about 6% since last week. A series of reports on Thursday suggested deteriorating US labour market conditions. Data from workforce analytics company Revelio Labs showed 9,100 jobs were lost in October, while US employers' planned layoffs soared to over 153,000 last month, global outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas said. The Chicago Fed estimated that the US jobless rate likely edged up in October to the highest in four years.That data came a day after the ADP National Employment Report showed private employment rebounded by 42,000 jobs in October.The Challenger layoffs report, combined with the lack of government jobs data, "raises a red flag in terms of whether or not the labour market has really stabilised," said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.Next week would have been a busy week of economic data, with government reports due on consumer and producer prices and retail sales. Those releases are poised to be delayed due to the shutdown. Investors will instead seek insight on the economy from traditionally more secondary reports, including the small business optimism index due to be released on Tuesday by the National Federation of Independent Business.As investors weighed the economic impact of the shutdown, the US transportation secretary warned on Friday the government could force airlines to cut up to 20% of flights if the shutdown did not end.The lack of government data is muddying the outlook for the Fed, which must decide whether to cut interest rates again at its next policy meeting in December. After the central bank eased by a quarter percentage point for a second straight meeting on October 29, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said another such reduction was not a foregone conclusion."The Fed needs help trying to figure out what's going on in the jobs market. They're getting seemingly conflicting signals and what they decide to do in December has ramifications obviously for the stock market," said Chuck Carlson, chief executive officer at Horizon Investment Services. Fed funds futures late on Friday were pricing in a roughly 65% chance of a rate cut in December. Before Powell's October comments, investors had viewed such a cut as almost a done deal.Investors were watching for developments that might suggest the end of the shutdown, which this week became the longest in US history. Focus was also on remaining high-profile quarterly reports, as a stellar earnings season in general nears a close. With 446 companies in the index having reported, 82.5% posted profits above analyst expectations, which would be the highest beat rate since the second quarter of 2021, LSEG IBES said on Friday. Reports due next week include Walt Disney and tech stalwart Cisco Systems. Those lead up to the quarterly report the following week from semiconductor firm Nvidia, the largest company in the world by market value that has symbolised investor enthusiasm for AI."I would just expect a little bit more volatility around technology leaders and technology as a whole heading into that Nvidia report," Saglimbene said.

The stock market didn’t crash this week. But after a seven-month spasm of retail-borne speculation, parts of the casino started clearing out.Cracks emerged across the risk-on landscape as bloated valuations and fresh doubts over the real-world payoff of artificial intelligence dragged US tech stocks to their worst week since April. Losses in megacaps like Palantir Technologies Inc and Oracle Corp. rippled through leveraged ETF and meme trades.The clearest signal of speculative distress: The crypto engine is sputtering. After a parabolic surge, Bitcoin and its peers have endured a violent unwinding that shattered confidence. This week, the coin slid repeatedly toward $100,000 amid a drought of ready buyers who had watched billions of dollars in leveraged positions get wiped out just weeks earlier — a shock the market has yet to recover from.Wall Street veterans have been warning for weeks that AI-fuelled tech valuations were outpacing fundamentals. That caution is now showing up in the same fast-moving trades where retail and institutional risk-taking had quietly converged — from upside-levered ETFs to crypto wrappers. Inflows haven’t vanished, but the payoff is no longer one-way.Peter Atwater, a professor of behavioural economics at the College of William & Mary, says the biggest blow yet to gambler spirits came Monday, when despite beating earnings forecasts Palantir saw its stock fall 8% the next day. The company, trading at a price-earnings multiple in the hundreds, is a bellwether for both hyperscaler tech and meme sentiment, he said.“It sits in the same neighbourhood as AI, as crypto,” he said. “Thematically, all of these different elements have the same intense-confidence correlation. These are all crowd favourites. So this is a crowd phenomenon.”The pullback isn’t universal. But for the first time in months, the speculative surge that once moved in near-lockstep is fragmenting. In equities, some high-octane trades are unravelling. A Meta Platforms Inc-linked ETF fell 8.5% this week and another focused on Palantir shed 22%. A Strategy Inc-minded product has slid more than 20%. Leveraged quantum and Super Micro Computer Inc. trades buckled, too.The group of tech giants known as the Magnificent Seven dropped 3% this week amid questions over their spending plans tied to AI infrastructure. A comment from OpenAI Inc’s CFO about the possibility of the government needing to “backstop” financing further grated nerves.“If you watch this week, there’s been a decided negative bias to what people are saying about AI,” Atwater said. “If we see the mood deteriorate, the scepticism should rise, the scrutiny should intensify. And those would be behaviours that ultimately limit the potential of the market to bounce.”Over the past week, indexes tracking meme stocks, non-profitable tech companies and recent IPOs all pulled back. An ETF focused on recent market entrants fell 5%, the most since September, while a basket of non-profitable names within the innovation space dropped 7%, the most since August.Meanwhile, more than $700mn has been pulled from digital-asset ETFs over the past week alone, including nearly $600mn from BlackRock’s Bitcoin fund and $370mn from its Ether counterpart. Solana and Dogecoin-linked products are down double-digits since their recent launches. Even the freshly minted MEME ETF — pitched as a retail sentiment play — is off more than 20% since its launch a month ago.“Investors are on edge,” said Stephen Kolano, chief investment officer at Integrated Partners. “Seems like the profit taking is coming from the things that have run the most since early April which is AI and anything connected with it which explains the pressure in” cryptocurrencies.That shift may matter beyond the meme complex. Retail risk appetite — from prediction markets and tokenised assets to Robinhood Markets Inc.’s fresh boom — helped fuel 2025’s bounce across broad markets despite stress on the tariff and labour market front. But now, with the gap between winners and losers rising and some risky trades draining capital, liquidity could be getting tighter at the edges.None of this signals a broader crash. The S&P 500 is off just 2% from recent highs. But for a crowd used to buying the everything-goes-up narrative, this week lands differently: Timing matters again. The tide may not be lifting all boats. Leverage cuts both ways.Bitcoin’s 15% slide over the past month is raising eyebrows not just for its scale, but its timing. A growing camp of Wall Street analysts now sees the token as a lead indicator for both high-volatility tech stocks and retail-driven liquidity. Among the chief concerns flagged in recent days is that so-called whales — investors who hold large, long-term positions — have been declining, according to Citi. This cohort has in the past tended to hold onto their hoards even during the roughest of declines.“Bitcoin has a knack for sniffing out things ahead of time,” said Bloomberg Intelligence’s Eric Balchunas. “It’s always trading, so there’s a lot of chances for it to be a price-discovery vehicle. It’s open all the time — like a 7-Eleven. And the people who trade Bitcoin are perpetually online and so plugged in.”The reversal is especially striking given the political momentum behind digital assets. Bitcoin’s early-year surge was powered in part by President Donald Trump’s campaign to rebrand the US as the crypto capital of the world. But after peaking near $4.4tn in October, the total market cap of digital tokens has since dropped nearly 20%, wiping out most of 2025’s gains. For traders betting that regulatory clarity would unleash a new supercycle, the speed of the comedown has been sobering.“There’s simply not enough new capital to offset locals exiting. Too many in the industry just can’t stomach another crypto cycle — they’ve had enough, both financially and emotionally,” Marex’s Ilan Solot wrote in a note this week. “For the uptrend to resume, the whales need to stop selling. Stabilising ETF flows would help too.”

The largest stock market crashes have occurred in September or October. The Panic of 1907 began in mid-October, the Wall Street crash of 1929 saw its biggest falls on 24 and 29 October, the ‘Black Monday’ crash of 1987 was on 19 October, while the collapse of Lehman Brothers that triggered the banking crisis occurred in September 2008.President Trump has made no secret of his desire for lower interest rates. Will he push them towards zero, and might this be one of the triggers for market corrections?Are we heading for a similar crash? By any conventional indicators, stock market valuations are overheated. The problem is that this has been the case for some months, and those ignoring the warning signs have profited.The investment boom in AI is believed by many to herald such a huge boost to business productivity that traditional indicators of company valuation are no longer valid – but of course the phrase ‘This time is different’ is itself a warning sign. It is the title of a book on investment bubbles and crashes, written by economists Carmen M Reinhart and Kenneth S Rogoff and published in 2009, shortly after the start of the financial crisis.There are two strong indicators that this time is really no different to earlier bubbles. The first is that at least some of the investment in AI may be misplaced. There is little doubt that the rapid development of highly powerful AI tools holds the potential for significant productivity gains. It is less certain, however, that the big bet on massively increasing the capacity of data centres in the quest for an ultra-high level of synthetic intelligence is going to pay off in a direct way.A study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in August reported that 95% of AI pilot schemes did not result in better business performance. In mid-September JP Morgan Asset Management warned that valuations in AI were ‘stretched’, such that only a small disappointment in earnings could prompt a sell-off. The scale of investment in data centres to power AI is in the order of $3tn, around half of which comes from the capital of big tech companies, but a high proportion is funded by private credit, which is comparatively opaque, and is linked to the banking system.It is a near-certainty that many venture capital-backed AI start-ups will fail, but the extent of this and the impact on the wider economy is difficult to gauge.Evidence is emerging of productivity gains from AI – but these emerge from smarter and more focused use of bespoke AI tools, allied to the most intelligent human direction. Small language models (SLMs) may be more effective than LLMs in many business applications, which is great news for those firms that get it right – but less so for the investors who have bet big on scaling up.It is all but inevitable that a major new technology will feature a bubble. It has occurred with railways in the 19th century, and dotcom firms and supportive infrastructure in the late 1990s. Even when the bubble bursts, it is only a serious problem for the wider economy if it affects the banking industry such that loans dry up for other parts of the economy, heralding a recession.The second major risk factor is the pro-cyclical behaviour of the President of the US in slashing interest rates and encouraging speculation. Just before the financial crash of 2007-08, Chuck Prince, then the CEO of Citibank, famously said that as long as the music is playing, you need to dance. President Donald Trump is now the one trying to keep the music playing.President Trump encourages stock market investment, and authorised the US government to purchase a 10% stake in the chip manufacturer Intel – an extraordinary decision.He has also pressured the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, expressing a desire both for ultra-low rates and a weaker dollar. The official US interest rate was duly cut in mid-September, by 25 basis points, to 4-4.25%.It is unusual for interest rates to be reduced to very low levels in non-recessionary conditions. Inflation is not very high, but it is above the nominal target of 2% and in August it edged upwards to 2.9% from 2.7%. There are, however, indicators of credit delinquency and other signs of financial stress among some consumers.There is likely to be at least one more cut of the same amount before the end of 2025, and probably two. Nominally, the Federal Reserve is independent of the White House, but President Trump has made his desire for lower rates very public. The courts have so far paused his efforts to remove Lisa Cook from the Federal Board. His own nominee for the board, Stephen Miran, has been approved.There is another risk factor: Less reliable economic statistics. In early August, President Trump fired Erika McEntarfer, Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, complaining that the employment data, weaker than expected, were incorrect. In addition, budget cuts at the Bureau have meant a reduction in the data points that feed into the official statistics.The US is exhibiting some of the features more normally associated with emerging economies: A President over-reaching his authority, compromised independence of key institutions, concern over the accuracy of economic data. This does not mean we are about to witness economic meltdown and hyper-inflation in the US, given the depth and strength of its internal economy, but there are signs of weaker long-term stability.A near-certainty is the continued increase in US public sector debt, and erosion of the value of paper money. The gold price has risen from $2,600 per ounce less than a year ago to around $3,800 per ounce by late September. Gold now forms a greater proportion of central bank reserves than US Treasuries for the first time since 1996.As regards the investment bubble, is this time different? In many respects, no. Will there be a market crash in October? It is never possible to be certain, but there are many red warning signs.The author is a Qatari banker, with many years of experience in the banking sector in senior positions.

Major indices on the US stock market ended today's trading session in the green. The S&P 500 index rose by 32.05 points, or 0.47%, closing at 6,662.84 points. Meanwhile, the Nasdaq Composite gained 156.30 points, or 0.69%, finishing at 22,625.48 points. The Dow Jones Industrial Average also saw a notable increase, adding 165.45 points, or 0.36%, to close at 46,315.77 points.

Saudi Arabia’s battered stock market is looking increasingly attractive to foreign investors because of rock-bottom valuations and bets that the oil price won’t drop much further.Investors from beyond the Arabian Gulf accounted for 41% of total Saudi equities buying in the week ended August 28, one of the highest ratios on record, according to Saudi stock exchange data compiled by Bloomberg Intelligence.The flows signal that a rush of reforms making it easier for foreigners to buy Saudi stocks is working. For the time being, however, risks still have the upper hand with the Tadawul All Share Index down 11% year to date and domestic investors on the retreat, along with crude prices.Nishit Lakhotia, head of research at SICO Bank, said stock investors are currently pricing in a “worse-case scenario” for the Saudi market, which he expects to bottom out shortly, unless oil drops below $60 a barrel — which would amount to a roughly 10% drop from current levels.“We believe the momentum is still there in the economy, which does not warrant such depressed valuations,” he said. “While it’s hard to predict when exactly the market can turn, there will likely be a point — sooner than later — when smart investors will start buying.”The slump has made Saudi stocks look relatively attractive, with the benchmark index near the lowest price-to-earnings multiple in more than five years. Junaid Ansari, director of investment strategy and research at Kamco Investment Co, expects a sharp turnaround in sentiment from the fourth quarter, when investors start making allocations for 2026.“The Saudi market is an oversold market,” said Ansari. While foreigners have largely been net buyers, “the sellers are mainly institutions in Saudi Arabia which we believe are selling to focus on other investment opportunities in the Kingdom,” he said.Nevertheless, the weak oil market is weighing down Saudi assets. Brent crude is trading around $66 per barrel, well below the nation’s fiscal breakeven price of $94, according to Bloomberg Economics. If domestic investments by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund are included, the figure rises to $111.While foreigners accounted for about 35% of all Saudi stock purchases in August, continuing a strong trend, daily turnover on the market has dropped to the lowest level since 2023. This means that international investors are grabbing a bigger slice of a smaller pie.Still, the gloom over the kingdom’s stocks may be over-hyped, especially as a negative perception of earnings is in large part based on giants, such as Saudi Arabian Oil Company and Saudi Basic Industries Corp.Excluding Aramco and Sabic, Saudi stocks are showing roughly 7% profit growth, Kamco’s Ansari said. Even as the Tadawul index has declined, owners of Saudi National Bank and Saudi Telecom Co shares have seen 11% and 13% returns, respectively, so far this year.“Although earnings growth for 2025 and 2026 is among the lowest across emerging markets, valuations have become more attractive,” said Nenad Dinic, an emerging-markets equity strategist at Bank Julius Baer & Co Ltd.