Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk.
The White House is seeing its most significant personnel shift since the administration began. President Trump has named Stephen Miller as chief of staff, replacing Susie Wiles following a bruising midterm cycle that handed Democrats control of both the House and Senate. The move signals a harder ideological turn heading into the back half of the term.
Turning to the labor market, the headline jobs numbers may look solid on the surface, but dig deeper and a troubling pattern emerges. The average duration of unemployment crossed twenty-seven weeks in October, the highest level outside of the pandemic in a full decade. That tells you the people losing jobs right now are struggling to find their way back in, even as hiring continues elsewhere.
And in the commodities space, sugar is under pressure for the third consecutive week. New York world sugar fell to a five-week low today while London white sugar touched its weakest level in three months. The culprit is stronger-than-expected output coming out of India, which is pushing global supply estimates higher and squeezing the bull case that had supported prices through much of the autumn.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
