The coming week is built around one day. On Wednesday the inflation measure the Fed watches is published, the third quarter closes, and Micron reports after the bell - all three on 30 September.
And then, on Friday, the employment report arrives.
Every date and time here was verified against the official release calendars and the companies' own announcements.
Errors or inaccuracies are possible. Spotted something that looks wrong? Write to me and I will correct it.
The Backdrop: What Happened in the Bond Market Last Week
Before looking forward, it helps to know what this data is landing into.
| 22.9 | 25.9 | Last time at this level | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two-year | 4.71% | 4.81% | - |
| Ten-year | 4.96% | 5.17% | 6 July 2007 |
| Twenty-year | 5.33% | 5.54% | 14 June 2004 |
| Thirty-year | 5.29% | 5.49% | 9 January 2002 |
| Ten-year real | 2.63% | 2.83% | 24 November 2008 |
US Treasury data. The historical comparisons were computed from its full archive, 9,191 trading days since 1990.
And two points worth noting:
First - the move is real, not inflationary. The nominal ten-year yield rose 21 basis points between 22 and 25 September. The real yield rose 20. Implied inflation expectations rose one basis point, from 2.33% to 2.34%.
Second - the curve steepened. The two-year rose and then came back down, while the long end kept rising. The spread between the two-year and the thirty-year widened from 58 to 68 basis points in three trading sessions.
And equities still rose on Friday - the S&P 500, via the fund tracking it, by 0.54%, and the Nasdaq 100 by 0.46%. Oil fell hard: the Brent oil fund lost 3.54%.
Monday, 28 September
A relatively quiet day. Jefferies from investment banking, Vail Resorts and IDT report.
Jefferies is interesting for one reason: its fiscal year ends in November, so it reports earlier than the other banks and sometimes serves as an early read on the banking season that begins in mid-October.
Tuesday, 29 September
Carnival from cruising, CarMax from used-car retail, and Concentrix report.
The first two are a window onto the American consumer - Carnival on leisure and travel spending, and CarMax on the used-car market, which is particularly sensitive to consumer credit rates. In a week when the long end of the curve is at a 24-year high, that is not a marginal angle.
Wednesday, 30 September - Three Events
08:30 New York - two releases from the Bureau of Economic Analysis:
- Personal income and outlays for August 2026. This is the release that contains the personal consumption expenditures price index - the inflation measure the Fed defines as its target.
- The third estimate of second-quarter GDP, together with corporate profits.
During the day - the third quarter closes. The last trading session of the quarter, with what comes with it: institutional rebalancing, and book-closing that can add movement for no substantive reason.
After the close - Micron. The investor call is at 2:30 p.m. Mountain time, which is 4:30 p.m. in New York.
Also reporting: Conagra in food, Jabil in electronics manufacturing, and FactSet. And among the Israeli companies traded in the US: CollPlant and Gauzy.
Why the collision matters: the consumption price index feeds directly into the next rate decision, and it arrives at a bond market already at a two-decade high. A market that has already priced high rates for a long time reacts differently to a surprise than one that has not.
And we wrote about Micron separately today - its previous quarter closed with an 84.6% gross margin, and its own guidance for the quarter reported on Wednesday points to $50 billion of revenue and margins near 86%.
Thursday, 1 October
Nike reports its first quarter of fiscal 2027 at approximately 1:15 p.m. Pacific time - that is, after the close - with the investor call at 2:00 p.m. Pacific. That is per the company's announcement of 28 August.
Also reporting: Accenture in consulting and IT, McCormick in food, Acuity, and Hub Group in logistics. And among the Israeli companies traded in the US: Alarum and ChemoMab.
Nike and Accenture are two different angles on the same question - Nike on the consumer, the supply chain and tariffs, and Accenture on large companies' IT budgets, which are one of the earlier reads on business spending.
Friday, 2 October
08:30 New York: the September employment report, per the Bureau of Labor Statistics release calendar.
This is the week's big number. The Fed raised rates on 16 September, and the dot plot showed 16 of 18 participants expecting at least one more increase this year. The labour market is the other side of the mandate - and the tighter it stays, the easier it is to keep raising.
And in Israel: A Holiday Week
Today, 27 September, is the 16th of Tishrei - the intermediate days of Sukkot. The festival runs through Shmini Atzeret on Saturday 3 October and Simchat Torah on Sunday 4 October.
And checking the Tel Aviv exchange's reporting calendar: no Israeli company is scheduled to publish a report this week. That is not surprising - third-quarter reports arrive in November - but the practical meaning is that every trigger this week is American.
הזווית שלי
דעה אישית של אילן אברמוב - לא ייעוץ ולא המלצה
What I will be watching this week is the gap between Wednesday's number and Friday's.
The consumption price index says how much inflation remains, and the employment report says how much force remains in the economy. The scenario that is hard for investors is not that one of them surprises
- it is that both surprise to the upside in the same week. That is precisely the combination that produces what we saw last week: real yields rising without inflation expectations moving.
And what I find especially interesting about the timing is the quarter close. End-of-quarter movement can look like a reaction to a data point, and is not. Anyone who looks at a sharp move on Wednesday evening and tries to explain it through the price index may simply be wrong - and it is worth remembering that in advance, not afterwards.
On Micron I will say only one thing here: its report falls on the same day the quarter closes and the same day the inflation number is published. That is not a day on which a clean market reaction to anything is easy to read.
And on the bond market, the note I wrote last week stands: one day is not a trend, and a high yield is not a forecast of a higher yield. What it does do is raise the bar every other asset is measured against
- so this week is read first through the curve, and only then through the reports.
(It is important to stress: this is my personal opinion only, nothing herein constitutes a recommendation to take any action, and there is no forecast here of any data point or report.)
Ilan Abramov, the author, or anyone on his behalf may hold some of the securities or funds mentioned in this article.
