Dear reader,
Most investors wait for the government press conference.
I follow the money before the cameras show up.
And the money trail now leads straight to one tiny nickel stock.
Its U.S. platform has already been selected for $135.4 million in disclosed federal grants: $114.8 million tied to a domestic processing facility and another $20.6 million supporting exploration in Minnesota and Michigan.
That is not a prediction. That’s money already disclosed.
The next step is my forecast: I believe Washington could eventually go further and take an equity stake.
It may never happen. But the U.S. has already shown it is willing to put taxpayer capital directly into strategic mineral companies. And this company now controls the only primary nickel mine operating in America.
Meanwhile, Tesla has locked in a six-year supply agreement, and America remains dangerously exposed to foreign nickel supply.
Russia, China, and Indonesia have leverage because the United States allowed its domestic pipeline to wither.
This little company is one of the few credible ways to fight back.
That’s why I bought 10,000 shares before any equity announcement.
I am not promising Washington will buy in. I am saying the grants, the operating mine, the Tesla agreement, and the strategic pressure form a setup I refuse to ignore.
Click here to learn more about the $5 nickel stock I believe Washington could target next.
Yours for peace, prosperity, and liberty, AEIOU,
Dr. Mark Skousen
Macroeconomic Strategist, The Oxford Club
P.S. Washington has already backed this platform with $135.4 million in disclosed grants.
If an equity stake comes next, I believe a stock this small could move violently.
I refuse to wait for the press conference.
Click here to reveal details on what I bought before Washington makes its next move.
A +0.3% Retail Number Can Hide a Consumer Losing Ground
There is a version of Thursday morning where the headline lands at +0.3%, desks call the consumer resilient, and retail stocks catch a bid. That version is not wrong. It is just incomplete, and traders who stop there will miss the actual story.
What Happened
The Census Bureau releases advance retail sales for September on October 15 at 8:30 AM Eastern, alongside the Producer Price Index. Consensus sits at +0.3% for the headline month-over-month reading. That would be a sharp deceleration from August’s +1.2%, when retail and food services sales reached $773.9 billion. A separate model-based preview may circulate ahead of the Census release, but the trade still comes down to the same question: how much of the nominal gain is volume, and how much is price.
The gap between those two numbers is where the trade lives. Nominal sales can rise because prices rose. NRS point-of-sale data showed September units sold declined 2.0% year over year, even as the dollar-weighted price of the top 500 items climbed 2.1% year over year, up from 1.7% in August. Fewer things bought at higher prices equals a serviceable headline, and a deteriorating consumer underneath it.
Why It Happened
The cost environment hitting September spending was severe. As of October 9, the national average gasoline price was about $4.37 per gallon, and AAA said pump prices were the highest they have ever been for this time of year. Diesel hit $6.529 per gallon in the week of September 21 before easing. The 30-year mortgage rate reached 7.4% as of the week ending October 8, its highest level since November 2023.
Those three numbers squeeze spending through separate channels: fuel costs eat take-home pay, elevated mortgage rates freeze housing turnover and suppress the big-ticket purchases that go with it, and Home Depot’s CEO told analysts that uncertainty is holding consumers back from taking on large projects, with larger discretionary purchases remaining under pressure. That is directly visible in Home Depot’s comparable sales and it will show up in the building materials and electronics categories on Thursday.
Meanwhile, the combined weight of tariffs and the Iran conflict has been pressing on consumers, accelerating the well-documented rotation toward value channels. Amazon captured 9.59% of total U.S. retail spending in Q2 2026, a new record, while Walmart’s share slipped to 7.50%. Costco posted a 13% net sales gain for its September reporting period. The winners are value and convenience. The middle is getting compressed.
How Professionals Might View It
Experienced traders will watch the ex-autos, ex-gasoline control group, the figure that feeds directly into GDP estimates, rather than the headline. A positive print there alongside a rising PPI would tighten the data picture for the Fed. August PPI came in at +0.4% month-over-month, with goods up 1.1%, and final demand prices running 5.4% year over year. A September number that holds or exceeds that level, combined with a retail headline that appears healthy, gives the hawks exactly the argument they need to keep December on the table.
The positioning question is straightforward: does the market already know this? Public reporting this week has described futures pricing as pointing to a hold at the Oct. 27 to 28 meeting, with expectations more focused on December. Rather than anchor to a specific percentage in a fast-moving market, treat this as the core point: a hot PPI with a nominal-only retail beat shifts very little for October but adds pressure to December pricing, which is where the real rate sensitivity for equities lies right now.
What Comes Next
WMT, TGT, AMZN, HD, and COST all deserve attention through the lens of what Thursday confirms. Retailers that depend on discretionary, large-ticket, or gasoline-adjacent demand face the most direct downside from a real spending decline. Value and consumable-heavy operators are better positioned regardless of the headline. The sector divergence is already priced into relative performance; Thursday either validates or complicates it.
The Trader’s Lesson
Headline economic numbers and economic reality can point in different directions for months before the gap closes. When nominal data looks fine and real data does not, the honest position is not certainty in either direction, it is reduced size and sharper attention to which specific retailers and categories are actually gaining volume. Chasing a positive headline into a sector with deteriorating unit economics is one of the more reliable ways to give back gains in a rate-sensitive environment. Thursday will reward the traders who read past the first number.