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|  |  | Wednesday, October 1, 2025 | | Sponsored by |  |  | | Michael Nagle/Bloomberg via Getty Images | Good morning, Quartz readers! It’s Shannon Carroll with the Daily Brief. Today, markets wobble while gold glitters, optimism slips into the bargain bin, Wall Street shakes off its September hex, and timber tariffs hammer housing costs higher. | | HERE'S WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW | Markets sagged Tuesday as Washington hurtled toward a shutdown. The Dow and S&P dipped, the dollar weakened, and gold touched highs as congressional leaders largely stayed deadlocked. | A government shutdown won’t affect tariff collection. The Department of Homeland Security said in its latest contingency plans that it will keep collecting import taxes
even if federal funding dries up. | Trump’s timber tariffs could drive up housing costs. The levies include a 10% duty on lumber and a 25% tariff on upholstered wood products, and some experts warn of
construction costs and job losses. | New York Fed president downplays tariffs’ effect on inflation. John Williams said that the levies have only modestly affected prices and that inflation is less of a
threat than before, underscoring divisions at the Fed. | | | SPONSORED |  | Drink Coffee at Least once a Week? (Must See This) | There are two different types of coffee drinkers in this world.. One who
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even if you drink coffee just one day a week, you are going to want to see this shocking video. | | | SEPTEMBER GHOSTS ITS BAD REP | September has historically been the market’s haunted house. For a century, the month has carried Wall Street’s worst batting average — the “September slump” that traders whisper about like it’s a stock market version of Mercury in retrograde. But this year, the charts look like someone swapped the script. The S&P has climbed more than 3% since late August, the Nasdaq more than 5%, and even the Dow and small caps have joined in. Instead of spooking investors, September became the month that
ghosted its own myth.
The obvious accelerant is the Federal Reserve. Chair Jerome Powell hinted at relief in Jackson Hole and then delivered a September rate cut — the year’s first — pumping oxygen straight into equities. Tech, already the heavyweight in every major index, inhaled the most. And while stocks soared, the market’s mood board stayed complicated: gold up double digits, the VIX creeping higher, the dollar barely moving. A rally, yes, but one gilded with
nerves.
And then layered on top is the AI juggernaut that refuses to cool. Investors are still treating machine learning like it’s an industrial revolution in the making, one that justifies nosebleed valuations. Add in Wall Street’s embrace of weak labor data — softer jobs numbers mean tamer wages and fatter margins — and markets have a rally that rests on both cheaper capital and cheaper labor. For a month built on legends of doom, September 2025 is proving stubbornly bullish, even
if the haunted house is still rattling in the background. Quartz’s Catherine Baab has more on a season famous for falling leaves, not rising stocks. | | BAD MOOD RISING | Consumers are in a mood — and it isn’t a good one. In September, the Conference Board’s confidence index slid to 94.2 — its lowest since April — and for the first time in months, more people now say the recession isn’t
looming, it’s already here. Consumers’ outlook on business and hiring plunged seven points, the steepest fall in a year, while short-term expectations for income and jobs stayed mired below the recession-warning threshold of 80.
The sour mood is tethered to a labor market that looks less “resilient” and more “exhausted.” Employers added just 22,000 jobs in August, well shy of the 75,000 economists expected, while job openings have shrunk for nine straight months. Only 27% of
households still call work “plentiful,” and the survey’s write-ins about jobs spiked to their gloomiest tone since last summer.
Inflation hasn’t left the stage, either — it’s the main character. Price expectations eased slightly but remain hotter than last year, with tariffs keeping shoppers twitchy. On top of that, a government shutdown threatens to delay the September jobs report (scheduled for release on Friday), leaving the public to stew in its own pessimism and investors
flying blind. When you put all that together, you get a fragile mood: thinner wallets, fewer job prospects, and confidence that is cracking right when the economy needs consumers most. Quartz’s Hannah Parker has more on the receipts consumers are keeping. | | | SPONSORED |  | | Are you turning
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