Offbeat Wall Street

This week we're talking Star Wars.  And the Fed.  Rogue One is in theaters, and in the halls of the central bank, another force awakened: the Fed's rate-hike mojo is back.  We give you the details of the rate hike and look ahead to what's next for interest rates.

We also preview what's coming up this week.  And as always, we take our tour of out-of-the-way spots on Wall Street.   A controversial advertiser is returning to the Super Bowl.  Super Mario is getting a new home in Tokyo...

And SeaWorld is coming to the Middle East.  But their not bringing their killer whales.

This week, we're traveling from Europe to the U.S., taking a tour of monetary policy.

The Fed is set to announce its interest rate decision this week.  At this point, a rate hike is almost a foregone conclusion.  But we take a look at what's in store down the road for interest rates.  We also look back at last week's monetary policy decision out of Europe.  The European Central Bank surprised markets with an extended easy money plan.

And as always, we travel to some of the more out of the way spots on Wall Street.

We try to broker a wrestling match between the future first daughter of the country and the current first daughter of the WWE.  We look at the ways a student athlete is NOT like an employee, at least in the opinion of a federal court.  We also look at Amazon's plan to sell produce without checkout lines.

And we celebrate Hanukkah with some donut whoppers from Burger King.

This week, we focus on oil and jobs.  But then we lose focus and talk about cord-cutting, an uber for laundry and pizza delivering reindeer.

The serios stuff first:

For the first time in about 8 years, OPEC has reached a deal to cut production.  The move pushed oil prices up last week.  We take a look at some of the details of the move.

Meanwhile, the government released its latest jobs report.  The numbers were pretty ho-hum, but strong enough to keep the door open to a Federal Reserve rate hike later this month.  We dig into the employment stats and look at what they mean for interest rates.

We also check in with the Fed.  They released their latest econ overview last week.  We've got details on that and take a look beyond the next Fed meeting.

This week, we're here to make Offbeat Wall Street great again!

Donald Trump has pulled off the greatest political upset in at least the last 50 years.  

In honor of his upset, we're going to look at how markets typically respond to election results.  No surprise: they're response to Trump's victory was not what usually happens.  We'll take a look at how they responded and why that was strange.

We also look at some other landmarks so far in November.

This year's World Series has two teams that have not won a championship in decades.  Between the Cubs and the Indians there is 176 years of collective futility.  One of those streaks is coming to an end.

The Federal Reserve has been holding rate steady for a long time.  Not as long as the Cubs and Indians have been waiting for a Series title - but it's been a while.

The Fed is meeting this week.  Pressure has been mounting for the central bank to raise rates.  It's not likely to happen this week, but an increase is likely relatively soon.

We take a look at where the Fed stands and when that rate hike is likely.  We also check in with the election, with earnings season and with the economy.

Halloween is on its way and Wall Street has been nervous.  There's been a lot for investors to digest.  Earnings season continues to roll on and in this episode, we update you on some of last week's headline makers.  We also look ahead to this week, when the likes of Apple and Google are set to release their results.

Meanwhile, the Federal Reserve remains in view.  There's little chance the Fed is going to raise interest rates ahead of the presidential election.  But the odds remain high that a rate hike is on the way in December.  We'll peak in on the latest from the Fed and see what to expect on that front.

And of course, the presidential campaign is coming into its final stretch.  There hasn't been much of direct impact on the market.  But the possiblity of a messy election is hanging over Wall Street.  Also, there's now doubts about how the Congressional elections are likely to turn out, adding to the uncertainty.

We now live in a world where Bob Dylan is a Nobel Prize winner for literature.  Of course, Dylan isfamous for his changing phases.  He went from folky to rock icon to Christian soldier to old crank, with probably dozens of other iterations along the way.

That's a bit like the current stock market.  

For weeks now, we've been worried about interest rates and the state of the economy.  

The presidential election has loomed over all of this as well.  

Now, a flood of corporate earnings reports is coming out.  Market focus will have to shift from the Federal Reserve to corporate results to the election and then probably back to the Fed in mid-November.

We take a look at the twists and turns that are on the horizon, preview some of the interesting upcoming earnings and look further ahead to when the Fed will come back into view.

Every week, we range north of the Wall, mixing with Wildlings and facing down the Night King.  All in an effort to bring you the best information about Wall Street and the financial markets.

This week, we're taking a break from our usual format to take a deep dive into darkness:

October is the season of scary things.  Not least of which is stock market crashes.  Two of the most famous crashes in market history took place during October, in 1929 and in 1987. We look at both in detail and see if there are any signs of an impending crash now.

This week, there's dissention in the family.

The Federal Reserve's policy-setting committee met last week.  As expected, the Fed voted to hold off on a rate hike.

But not everyone was happy.

Fed Boss Janet Yellen is facing a rare level of dissention.  We take a look at the decision - who's on which side and what it all means for the future of interest rates.

We also check in on the housing market, weird patent applications from Apple, how the election might affect Christmas and how people are wasting money on premium gas.

This week, we're asking the key question:  have the financial markets gone through the looking glass?

Down is up.  Black is white. Bad data is good data.

And it's all the Fed's fault.  

For the past few weeks, the markets have been cheering weak economic data, believing it will force the Federal Reserve to delay rate hikes until later in the year.

This week, we find out whether it worked.  The Fed is going to announce its interest rate decision on Wednesday.  We give you a preview and break down the biggest stories of the past week.