Daily Rundown
October 30, 2026
Chart of the Day
Number of the Day
$77.3 billion
Amazon’s capital spending in the third quarter, up from $35.1 billion in the year-ago period and the most ever spent in a single quarter by a U.S. company.
Quote of the Day
“When it comes to orders and backlog, if it’s a significant order in gas prime power, we’re probably looking at 2029. What we’re hearing from our customers is they still want more from us, if we can get them more power.”
Caterpillar CEO Joseph Creed
Thursday’s Highlights
Real disposable income (September) fell by 0.3 percent, the first decline in five months.
Real personal spending (September) was unchanged, the weakest reading since January.
The personal saving rate (September) fell to a four-year low 3.8 percent from a prior 4.0 percent.
The PCE price index (September) rose by 0.5 percent on the month and 3.6 percent on the year.
The core PCE price index (September) rose by 0.3 percent on the month and 3.1 percent on the year.
Real GDP (Q3) increased by an annualized 3.4 percent, led by capex and personal consumption.
Initial unemployment claims (week of 10/18), ticked down by 1,000 to 194,000.
Amazon revenue (Q3) rose by 12.1 percent year-over-year. Online sales were up 1.6 percent.
Mastercard network spending volume (Q3) was up 7.5 percent year-over-year.
Quick Commentary
The rise in capital spending last quarter was the strongest in six years, as the AI boom is increasingly driving overall economic performance. Capex now accounts for close to 17.0 percent of real GDP, an all-time record, and has contributed more than one full percentage point to the headline growth rate in each of the last three quarters. This is yet another corollary to the internet boom of the late 1990s, when capex regularly advanced by more than 10.0 percent on an annualized basis and was a key factor in driving real GDP growth to four straight yearly increases in excess of 4.0 percent. It is worth noting, then, that that era ended with much more of a bang than a whimper, as capital spending soared in the first two quarters of 2000 before slowing considerably in the second half of the year and slumping into a deep contraction in 2001. Given the breakneck nature of the current surge, it is a good bet that this cycle will end in much the same manner. For now, robust capital spending is solidifying the overall expansion and, at the margin, helping to keep core inflation stubbornly high and in turn keeping the Fed very much in play for further rate hikes.
Today’s Highlights
Employment cost index
Chicago PMI
Daily Trivia
What product’s name was changed in 1985 due in part to the fact that it was confusing retailers’ pricing systems and in part because it didn’t translate well to other countries with different currencies?
(Thursday’s Question: What Disneyland attraction languished in development for more than a decade before opening in 1969, the delays owing in part to internal debate over whether to make it humorous or not? Answer: The Haunted Mansion)