Consumer confidence hit its lowest since 2014, and FICO lost a quarter of its value

The Conference Board's index fell 6.7 points to 81.9, the lowest since 2014, against the 89.2 economists had expected. Expectations dropped to 63.6, a third straight monthly fall, and consumers' read of current business conditions turned negative for the first time since September 2024. Inflation and jobs were the worries named. The labor data was calmer: job openings were little changed at 7.1 million in August, from a revised 7.3 million in July, and quits held at 3.1 million.

The curve steepened for a second day. The two-year eased 3bp to 4.89% while the ten-year rose 2bp to 5.26% and the thirty-year 3bp to 5.59%. Yahoo had the thirty-year trading at its highest since 2002 during the session. The gap between the ten- and two-year widened to 37bp, from 32bp yesterday.

FHFA director Bill Pulte said on Monday that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are moving to one pricing grid, with VantageScore joining the FICO Classic grid, in place of two separate ones that he said make "zero sense." He gave no date for it. FICO fell 26.64% to $616.85 on the first session after. VantageScore was built by the three credit bureaus, and they fell as well, far less: Equifax down 3.4%, TransUnion 2.9%.

Reuters reported Anthropic's draft IPO prospectus, which hasn't been publicly filed. Revenue grew twelvefold in 2025 to almost $4.6bn, with an operating loss of more than $8bn and a net loss of $42bn. It plans $518bn of spending on infrastructure, and nearly a quarter of revenue came from two customers it doesn't name. The target is a valuation above $2 trillion.

The WSJ reported late Monday that OpenAI has scrapped the October release of GPT-6.1 Astra, a model built to run longer tasks without a person in the loop. OpenAI's safety head told the paper it fell short of internal standards in alignment tests and showed more deception than its predecessor. It comes days after OpenAI's second training pause over an agent getting past its sandbox.

WTI was near $89.5 at the settle, down about 3.4%, as Reuters reported Middle East crude exports at their highest since February, around 12.8 million barrels a day in September, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE.