Today's Scoop:

Hey friends - Make sure to catch up with our Weekly Scoop, and don’t miss our Explained about how the climate conversation needs to focus on oil demand, not production.

Here’s what you need to know today…

1. It’s still a good time to find a job.

2. Wages aren’t growing as quickly.

3. Corporate bankruptcies are on the rise.

S&P 500: 4,335.66
1Mo: -3% | 1Yr: +20% | 5Yr: +57%

The market plunged and bounced back today as investors tried to analyze the economic impact of the crisis in Israel. Oil prices and defense company stocks jumped, but what happens from here is still unclear.

Employment is still stronger than anyone expected it to be right now. The Labor Department reported the public and private sectors added 336,000 more jobs in September, nearly double what economists expected. They also revised their July and August reports upward by 119,000 jobs. The unemployment rate stayed at 3.8%, which is still close to 50-year lows. The Labor Department reported an increase in new job postings in August, with openings outnumbering unemployed workers by over 50%.

Even with such significant worker demand, wages aren’t rising that quickly. The Labor Department reported average hourly earnings rose only 0.2% in September, up 4.2% over the past twelve months. We don’t know yet how much living costs rose in September, but inflation was 0.6% in August. When adjusting for inflation, real average wages declined by 0.5% in August.

Business bankruptcies are on the rise, particularly with large corporations. The number of bankruptcy filings for companies with over $100M in assets tripled in the first half of the year, according to analysis by the Wall Street Journal. The total number is not yet concerning, but the size, systemic importance, and potential shockwaves of the companies going under are raising alarms. The bankruptcies have crossed industries, from disruptive banking failures like SVB to retailers like Bed Bath & Beyond or trucking giant Yellow.

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• Chevron workers go back on strike

• General Motors faces one the largest recalls in history

• Exxon Mobil attempts the biggest takeover of the year [🤓]

• Levi Strauss struggles with shopper slowdowns

• Microsoft experiments with low emissions concrete

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How do corporate mergers work?

Mergers and acquisitions are a core component of corporate expansion and development. When a company wants to expand into a new market or absorb new resources that another company has, it'll typically hire an investment bank (like a real estate broker, but for companies) to help identify, value, and negotiate a deal with the target company.

The acquiring company may take on debt to fund the deal, trade its stock, or use its cash reserves. The acquisition can be an all-cash deal, where shareholders receive cash in their brokerage accounts, or an all-stock deal, where your shares of Company X turn into some amount of shares of Company Y, or some mixed combination of the two.

Regulators review all corporate mergers and acquisitions to ensure newly-formed companies won't limit competition in a way that harms consumers with less choice or higher prices.

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