According to @KobeissiLetter, the Chicago Fed Seventh District hiring expectations index fell to -40 in October, the lowest since 2020 and the weakest ex-2020 reading since the survey began in 2013, with a 41-point drop in two months and the current hiring index near a 5-year low and negative for three years, source: @KobeissiLetter. The Seventh District covers Illinois, Iowa, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin, source: Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. For context, the US unemployment rate peaked at 14.8 percent in April 2020 during pandemic shutdowns, source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. For traders, weakening hiring expectations can reinforce market bets on an easier Fed path given the Fed’s dual mandate linking labor conditions to policy, with front-end Treasury yields and DXY key gauges for rate expectations, while crypto has increasingly moved with broad risk sentiment, source: Federal Reserve Board, CME Group, and International Monetary Fund.