The Week Ahead: The Fed Took a Vow of Silence. Big Tech Gets the Microphone.

Welcome to karaoke night. The Fed went into its quiet period on Saturday, which means nobody who votes on interest rates is allowed to say a word about them until the October 27-28 meeting. The economic calendar is mostly housing and a few surveys. So for one week, the people setting the mood are the companies themselves.

And the lineup is loaded. Netflix goes on Tuesday. Meta, Tesla, Lam Research, and Texas Instruments all go Wednesday night, about an hour apart, right after a basket of 30 big chip stocks lost eight days in a row. That's like asking the band to play right after the stage collapsed.

Last week's roller coaster is cleaned up in Saturday's Week In Review. This is what's next.

Everything with a date. Times are Central. Forecasts come from the EODHD economic calendar; other surveys differ a little (the Wall Street Journal's has housing starts at 1.31 million). If it's not on this table, it's background noise.

The AI stocks lost eight straight days. Now they have to explain the bill.

Here's the setup. The SOX, a basket of 30 big chip stocks, closed Friday at 11,137, down 15.7% from its October 6 close. Lam Research, which makes the machines that make the chips, is down about 21% in that stretch. That isn't a dip. That's the singer forgetting the words and the crowd starting to boo.

Nobody said people stopped wanting AI. The worry last week was who's paying for all those data centers, and how much of that money is borrowed. So Wednesday night, the people actually buying the stuff walk up to the mic.

Meta is the big spender. Investors want one answer: how much more it plans to pour into AI next year, and when that turns into money. Its stock fell 3.7% on Friday alone, before saying a word. Tesla already told us it delivered 486,532 cars last quarter, more than the roughly 462,000 expected. The profit number is the mystery. Nasdaq's forecast is 21 cents a share. Other trackers have it in the 40s. That's a big gap, so whether Tesla "beats" or "misses" depends on whose forecast the headline uses. Lam Research and Texas Instruments tell us whether chip orders are real or just vibes.

The household side gets its turn, too. Netflix Tuesday is forecast to earn 82 cents a share, up from 59 cents a year ago. Procter & Gamble's Thursday forecast is at $1.89, below last year's $1.99. American Express closes the week on Friday. If you want to know whether regular people are still paying for streaming, toothpaste, and dinner out, these three are the receipts.

That isn't a dip. That's the singer forgetting the words and the crowd starting to boo.

What could go wrong: Meta raises its spending plan and doesn't show the payoff. Then "AI is the future" turns back into "who's paying for this?" and the chip stocks go for nine in a row.

No speeches, no hints, and the betting crowd has already picked its song.

The Fed (America's central bank, the folks who set the basic cost of borrowing) has a rule. Before each meeting, officials go quiet for about a week and a half. That quiet period started Saturday. The next decision comes on Wednesday, October 28, at 1:00 PM CT, the Wednesday after this week ends.

Right now, the Fed's key rate sits in a range of 3.75% to 4.00%, after a hike in September. The odds of another hike in October are about 13% on Polymarket, a site where people bet real money on events, and about 15% on CME FedWatch, a tool that turns big traders' bets on interest rates into odds. December is a different story: 75.5% on Polymarket for a hike, as of Sunday at 5:35 PM CT. In plain English, the crowd thinks October is a pause, not the end.

The December bet leans on last week's hot inflation report, which showed prices up 3.7% from a year ago. With no Fed officials talking, this week's data has to do the talking. Thursday's jobless claims (forecast 200,000) and Friday's business surveys are the only real songs on the list.

What could go wrong: the surveys come in hot, and the crowd starts asking whether October is really a pause. With nobody from the Fed allowed to calm things down, a hot number gets no rebuttal.

Brent closed at $109.86. Before the war, it was about $72. Do the math on your gas tank.

Oil had a big week while stocks were busy falling. Brent crude, the global price, closed Friday at $109.86 a barrel, up 3.7% that day. The oil fund we track gained 9.2% on the week. The reason is the same as it's been since February: the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway a big chunk of the world's oil sails through, is barely moving traffic.

The weekend didn't help. Iran's Revolutionary Guard claims two supertankers hit mines and caught fire. No one has confirmed it independently yet. The UK's maritime security office has reported a pickup in attacks around the Strait this month. The US military says the strait is open, and most attacks fail. Both can be true. It's open the way a highway is open during a tornado.

Oil is the karaoke guy nobody signed up, and he's still the loudest one in the room.

This shows up in the earnings, too. Valero, the oil refiner, reports Thursday with a forecast of about $21 a share, per Nasdaq. When fuel prices run hot, refiners are the ones who get paid. United Airlines on Tuesday and American Airlines on Thursday get to explain what jet fuel is doing to their ticket prices. Wednesday morning's weekly oil inventory report tells us whether America is drawing down its own supply to keep up.

What could go wrong: one more big tanker hit and Brent tests the high $110s. Gas just jumped 9.1% in a single month in September's inflation report. Another leg up lands at the pump within weeks.

Three reports, one question: is anybody still building, buying, or selling?

On Monday at 9:00 AM, the National Association of Home Builders tells us how builders feel. The scale runs 0 to 100, and 50 means "fine." It's forecast at 31. That's a builder mood somewhere between "worried" and "hiding the receipts from my spouse."

Tuesday brings housing starts, the count of new homes breaking ground, forecast at a 1.30 million yearly pace in the EODHD calendar, up a hair from 1.275 million. The same morning, pending home sales, signed contracts that haven't closed yet, are forecast to slip 0.4%. Thursday, Freddie Mac posts its weekly mortgage rate. Last week the 30-year was 7.40%. A year ago, it was 6.27%.

There's one small break. The 10-year Treasury yield, the rate that steers mortgage rates, fell from 5.24% to 5.09% last week as scared money ran into government bonds. If that holds, mortgage rates could ease a little. Key word: little.

What could go wrong: a strong housing number plus hot surveys on Friday pushes yields back up, and that tiny mortgage relief disappears before anyone notices it showed up.

Ranked by how much it can actually move your money this week, not by how loud the headline is.

1. Iran and the Strait of Hormuz. Still no deal. Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, says the strait could reopen within about seven days if the US lifts its naval blockade of Iranian ports and eases sanctions on Iranian oil. President Trump has turned down those terms before, and he has said he'll hold off on new strikes before the midterms. US officials are reportedly drawing up a range of military options anyway. If talks open a real path, oil can fall fast and take some inflation fear with it. If a big tanker goes down, Brent keeps climbing.

2. China's growth report. China is scheduled to release its third-quarter growth numbers Monday morning Beijing time, which is Sunday night for us. The forecast is about 4.4% from a year ago, up a touch from 4.3%. A miss would hit commodity prices and the companies that sell a lot to China. A beat would cheer up copper and not much else.

3. Taiwan and the chip rules. Taiwan said Friday it plans to make shipping restricted AI chips and servers to China a criminal offense, aligning with US rules. That's a plan, not a law yet. It lands right before Lam Research, a chip-equipment maker, reports on Wednesday. Expect the question on its call.

4. The US midterms are on November 3. Sixteen days away. Every Hormuz headline is now also a campaign headline. "No strikes before the midterms" has a date stamped on it, and the date is getting close.

Wednesday, after the close. Meta, Tesla, Lam Research, and Texas Instruments, all within about an hour.

The Fed is silent. The data is thin. Netflix is the opening act, and P&G is the encore. But the song everyone came to hear is on Wednesday night, because it answers the question that wrecked the chip stocks for eight straight days: Is the AI spending turning into money, or just into more spending?

If Meta shows the AI spending paying off and Lam says orders are holding, the chip slump starts to look like a bad week, not a turning point, and Thursday morning gets a bounce.

If Meta raises its spending plan without the payoff, or Lam warns that orders are slowing, the chip stocks go for nine in a row, the Nasdaq extends its worst stretch since June, and Friday's surveys land in a nervous room.

The honest posture: don't be a hero before 3:00 PM Central on Wednesday. Let them sing. Then hold up your scorecard.

The Fed took a vow of silence. The data took the week off. That leaves the companies alone on stage with a microphone, a spotlight, and a crowd that just watched the chip stocks fall eight days in a row.

Some of them will hit the high note. Some will crack. Oil will keep grabbing the mic between songs.

Grab a drink, find a seat, and don't sign up to sing until you've heard Wednesday.

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DISCLAIMER - Tracking the Trade is a newsletter, not an investment adviser, a bank, or a karaoke judge with a license. Everything here is for information and entertainment, mostly the latter. We aren't licensed to tell you what to buy, and this week the Fed isn't allowed to tell you anything at all. Prices and data were accurate when pulled and may have changed before the next song. Do your own research, and never take financial advice from a newsletter that just compared Meta to a guy who won't give up the microphone.