The Errata
The Errata No.13
Correction to No. 12. Yesterday's forecast, item 2, said the second quarter's growth rate of 2.2 percent had been "revised from 1.5 at the second estimate and 2.1 at the first." The first estimate was 1.5 as well. The Bureau of Economic Analysis's advance release of 30 July gave the second quarter at 1.5 percent and the first quarter at 2.1; Investing.com's release history carries the sequence as 1.5 on 30 July, 1.5 on 26 August and 2.2 on 30 September. The desk took the first quarter's figure for the second quarter's first draft. The item is corrected in the forecast register and still stands for Thursday in its corrected form: a comparison made against 1.5 is a comparison against a superseded estimate.
The Federal Reserve held. Ten votes to two, the range unchanged at 3¾ to 4 percent, and one forward-looking sentence saying more information will help. What was printed around that document is tonight's sheet: a dissenter promoted to the Board, a target range reduced to a point, two headlines naming one dissenter above bodies naming two, a card that closed the S&P 500 at a record "ahead of" a decision two hours old, and a Korean daily that reported Microsoft's quarter in won under a dollar sign. Eleven entries. Then a ten-year that closed above five percent at two values, and seven things to expect tomorrow morning when growth, inflation and the European Central Bank all arrive before ten.
Wrong today
Eleven entries for Wednesday. Each names the outlet, quotes what it printed, states what was true, and says how the gap surfaced.
1. A Reserve Bank president promoted to governor. Wealth Professional's account of the decision, byline dated 28 October and read at 7:23 and again at 7:58 p.m.: "The decision was not unanimous. Governors Cook and Hammack voted for another 25 basis point interest rate hike." Lisa Cook is a governor. Beth Hammack is president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, and the statement names "Lisa D. Cook and Beth M. Hammack" without titles because they do not share one. No. 12 saw this page on Wednesday afternoon and left it for tonight; it stood uncorrected at 7:58 p.m., under a publication stamp of 14:00 UTC, four hours before the decision it reports. Caught against the committee's roster.
2. Two members of the Board, one of whom is not. Just the News, published 2:20 p.m. and updated 2:24: "Two members of the board reportedly sought to raise rates outright, according to the Wall Street Journal." One did. The page prints no rate, no range and no name, and its headline, "Fed holds rates steady in last meeting before midterms," is right by the calendar: the next meeting is 8 and 9 December, the election is 3 November. Caught by counting governors.
3. The key rate at "about 3.9%", which is not the key rate. The Associated Press, in the copy carried by PBS NewsHour (updated 3:08 p.m.) and by WMAR (modified 6:45 p.m.), read at 7:24 and 7:25: "The Federal Reserve kept its key rate unchanged Wednesday at about 3.9%." No range appears anywhere in the text. The policy rate is a range, 3¾ to 4 percent; 3.90 is the interest rate on reserve balances in the implementation note, and the midpoint by coincidence. Fox 13 Tampa took the point into a headline, "Fed holds key interest rate at 3.9% as inflation remains elevated," at 2:56 p.m. The AP's titles for the two dissenters are exactly right. Caught against the implementation note.
4. A headline with one dissenter, a body with two. investingLive's recap, read at 7:28: "Recap: Fed holds at 3.75%-4% in 10-2 vote as Cook dissents for a hike." The first paragraph beneath it: "with Governor Cook and Cleveland Fed's Hammack dissenting for a hike." A ten-to-two vote has two dissenters, and the headline's own arithmetic says so. Caught by reading past the headline.
5. The same, at TheStreet. TheStreet Pro's live blog, 2:25 p.m. entry, read at 7:39: "FOMC Holds Rates Steady; Governor Cook Dissents." The body: "Cleveland Fed President Hammack, who did dissent," and then "there was also a dissent from Governor Lisa Cook." No vote count and no range on the page. The same outlet's 3:52 p.m. note gets the range right, "between 375 and 400 basis points," and the chair's name wrong once, "Chair Walsh." Caught by reading the body against the headline.
6. A decision card written before the decision. 24/7 Wall St.'s card, headlined "Fed Holds Rates but Eyes a December Hike That Reshapes 2026," read at 7:34: "the Fed holds its benchmark rate unchanged while signaling that a December increase is on the way." The post it is built on is stamped 8:44 a.m., five hours before the statement. The statement does not contain the word December, or hike, or increase except in the sentence describing the dissent; its forward sentence is that "the accumulation of more information will help the Committee determine the policy stance." No. 12's forecast named this frame for Thursday. It arrived on Wednesday, on a page that cannot have read the document it describes. Caught by searching the statement for the word.
7. A close that was not the close, twice on one page. Investing.com's market story, updated 4:16 p.m. and read at 7:38 and 7:57: "The benchmark S&P 500 rose 0.4% to close at 7,750.88 points, while the blue-chip Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.2% to settle at 52,479.62 points." The S&P 500 closed at 7,743.98, up 21.38 or 0.28 percent; the Dow at 52,475.10, up 97.53 (Associated Press; Yahoo Finance; TheStreet Pro; The Motley Fool; TradingKey). The Nasdaq on the same page, 26,549.85, is right. 7,750.88 sits inside the day's range, whose high was 7,758.43; it is a reading from before the bell under the word "close." Caught against five agreeing feeds.
8. Forecast in No. 12: the closing card, with a record that was not one, "ahead of" a decision two hours old. 24/7 Wall St.'s closing-bell card for Wednesday, stamped 4:00 p.m. and read at 7:28 and 7:58, forecast in No. 12's item 9 for Wednesday or Thursday. Headline: "S&P 500 Closes at a Record 7,738 Ahead of the Fed Decision." Body: "The S&P 500 added 16 points to close at 7,738.81." Its closing-bell box: up 0.21 percent. Its own ticker, marked at close: 7,731.40, up 0.04. Three values for one close on one card, none of them 7,743.98. And the record: the index closed at 7,807.24 on 12 October, as this register recorded, so 7,738 could not be one on any reading. The decision was at 2:00. Caught against two feeds, and against the card itself.
9. A Dow close thirty-four points high. Trading Economics' United States stock-market page, news item, read at 7:20: "The Dow Jones Index gained 132 points or 0.25 percent on Wednesday to close at 52509 points." The Dow closed at 52,475.10, up 97.53 or 0.19 percent. The base is right, 52,509 less 132 is Tuesday's 52,377; the close is a snapshot from before it. Caught by subtracting.
10. Microsoft's quarter, in won, under a dollar sign. The Seoul Economic Daily's English edition, read at 7:30: headline, "Microsoft Beats Estimates With $124 Billion Revenue as Azure Jumps 48%." Body: "revenue reached $92.279 billion (about 123.8 trillion won)." Microsoft's release says revenue was $92.3 billion, up 19 percent. The headline's figure is the won conversion with the wrong currency on it, and thirty-two billion dollars of revenue that does not exist. Caught by reading the body.
11. The ECB at the wrong hour. Newsquawk's preview, headline: "ECB Policy Announcement due Thursday, 29th October 2026 at 13:15GMT/08:15EDT." Europe set its clocks back on 25 October; the United States does not until 1 November; for this one week the gap between London and New York is four hours, not five, and 13:15 GMT is 9:15 a.m. Eastern. The press conference, 13:45 GMT, is 9:45. Read at 7:30 p.m. Caught by the calendar, a week early.
Seen and not logged: Kiplinger's Brent "$111.40" and the Associated Press's "US$111.64," neither naming a month, where December Brent settled at $115.32 beside December WTI at $102.78 (Bloomberg via Rigzone, 4:50 p.m.; read 7:38); both are the January contract unlabelled, a roll, not an error. Trading Economics' index pages pairing Tuesday's change with Wednesday's levels, the template of entries 162 and 171, counted once and not again.
The forecast, scored
No. 12 was Tuesday's issue, delivered on Wednesday afternoon after the decision, and its nine items were made for Thursday, because a forecast made after the fact is not one. They are scored tomorrow night and stay open in the register tonight.
Four of them surfaced early. Item 5, Hammack as a governor, is entries 1 and 2 above; item 6, the rate without its range, is entry 3; item 7, a December signal the statement does not contain, is entry 6; item 9 named the closing card for Wednesday or Thursday, and Wednesday's is entry 8. Whether Thursday's wraps inherit them is for tomorrow's scoring. Item 2 is corrected at the top of this issue and stands in its corrected form.
The one number, reconciled
The ten-year Treasury yield was the number of the day: it ended Tuesday at 4.99 percent on the Treasury's own curve, and the question all afternoon was whether a hold with two hawkish dissents would put it back above five. It did. The press agreed on that and on little else.
Ten readings, nine sources, and they sort into two closes.
At 3:00 p.m., 5.05 percent, on three feeds. Yahoo Finance's ^TNX page: 5.05, up 0.05, "at close" 1:59:55 p.m. Central, which is the 3:00 p.m. Eastern print of the CBOE index, with a day's range of 4.99 to 5.05 (read 7:19). TheStreet Pro's wrap: "the 10-year rose 5 basis points to 5.05%" for the cash session (7:30). Forbes Advisor: "5.05% as of October 28, 2026, up 6 basis points" (7:31). The 3:00 p.m. close is sworn in at 5.05.
After hours, 5.02 percent, on five feeds. The Associated Press: "It rose to 5.02 per cent from 4.99 per cent late Tuesday" (7:18). The Motley Fool: 5.02 (7:20). Trading Economics: 5.021, up 1.8 basis points (7:26). Kiplinger: 5.024, up 3.3 (7:27). TheStreet Pro, in the same wrap that gave 5.05 for the cash session: "rose 2.1 basis points (including post-market) to 5.020%" (7:30). The evening level is sworn in at 5.02, and TheStreet is the one page that prints both and says which is which.
Not sworn: 5.04 and 5.019. Wolf Street's "instantly jumped by 4 basis points to 5.04% at the moment" of the statement, one feed describing one moment (7:37), and Investing.com's untimed widget at 5.019 (7:38). Schwab's 9:13 a.m. table at 4.99, up 0.01, is Tuesday's close in the morning.
The Treasury has not spoken. Its par-curve file carried Tuesday's row, 4.99, and no row for Wednesday at 7:31 and again at 7:47 p.m. Tomorrow's "the ten-year closed at" will be 5.05 on pages that read the index and 5.02 on pages that read the evening quote, and both will be called the close. The two-year, 4.70 on Tuesday's curve, finished between 4.699 (TheStreet, including post-market) and 4.74 (TheStreet, cash session).
For the stock indexes the reconciliation is as clean as it gets: 7,743.98, 52,475.10, 26,549.85 and 2,830.51, identical on the Associated Press, Yahoo Finance, TheStreet Pro, The Motley Fool and TradingKey, and each level less its change gives Tuesday's close to the cent. Every other figure printed for Wednesday's close is in Part 1.
Wrong tomorrow
Thursday is the busiest morning of the week. At 8:30 the first estimate of third-quarter growth and September's personal income and outlays arrive together; the European Central Bank announces at 9:15 Eastern and speaks at 9:45; the Treasury sells $44 billion of seven-year notes at 1:00; Mastercard, Merck, Caterpillar and Eli Lilly report before the open, Amazon and Intel after the close. No. 12's nine items stand for the morning. Six more, in the order they will arrive.
1. One growth print, two verdicts. The consensus for third-quarter growth is 3.2 percent on Trading Economics, Investing.com and the Wall Street Journal survey as relayed, and 3.0 percent at Briefing.com (via Schwab), FactSet (via the Associated Press) and Newsquawk. A print of 3.1 beats one and misses the other. Expect "beat" and "miss" headlines for the same number by 8:35, and expect neither to say which survey it used.
2. The ECB an hour early. Newsquawk's 08:15 EDT is entry 11. The week between Europe's clock change and ours produces this every year. Expect at least one calendar or live blog to put the announcement at 8:15 or the press conference at 8:45. The same offset puts Tokyo's October inflation print at 7:30 p.m. Thursday Eastern and the Bank of Japan's decision near 11:00 p.m.
3. The ten-year's close at two values, and a "first since" that is wrong. 5.05 at 3:00, 5.02 after hours, the Treasury's row not yet posted. Expect both as "the close." Expect also "first close above 5% since October 2023" or "since 2007" from anyone who was not reading in September and early October, when the ten-year closed above 5.2 for weeks and reached 5.35 on 5 October. The right frame is the first close above five since it fell under this month, and that date is on the Treasury's curve.
4. Amazon's capital spending on two bases. Microsoft tonight: $39.4 billion of additions to property and equipment in the cash-flow statement, about $45 billion including finance leases on the call, and an investingLive headline saying capex "lands $6bn below forecast" with $39 billion against $46 billion, which is seven. Amazon's release will carry "purchases of property and equipment" and a figure with leases; expect both called capex against a consensus that matches neither.
5. Alphabet's quarter, in line and a miss at once. Revenue was $127.6 billion against a consensus printed tonight at $127.22 billion (Investing.com), $127.9 (Yahoo Finance), $127.91 (investingLive), $127.93 (456X), $127.96 (TheStreet Pro) and $128.2 (Cautious Optimism). Yahoo called it "in line"; TheStreet Pro and 456X called it a miss. Expect both verdicts, and expect the diluted $2.12 called "adjusted," as Investing.com already has it, when the release carries no adjusted figure.
6. Releases that will not happen. One weekly calendar lists the Kansas City Fed's manufacturing survey for Thursday at 11:00; it was published on 22 October. Pending home sales for September came out on 20 October and the next release is 18 November, though NAR's own topic page gives that date to September and October alike. RSM's note says growth "is released on Friday." Expect "also due today" lines for data that is not due.
That is the forecast. Thursday night's Errata scores it, and No. 12's nine, against what was actually printed.
Sources and data notes
Every figure carries its feed and the minute it was observed, Eastern. Pages were read between 7:17 and 7:58 p.m. by four parallel readers working from one brief and by the desk; the quotations in entries 1, 7 and 8 were read twice, the rest once. Where feeds disagree, both are printed.
The decision. Federal Reserve, statement of 28 October, 7:22 p.m.: range "3-3/4 to 4 percent," "10 – 2 vote," "Lisa D. Cook and Beth M. Hammack, who preferred to raise the target range." Implementation note, 7:23: interest on reserve balances 3.90 percent; primary credit 4.0. The December meeting per the Board's FOMC calendar, 7:50.
Entries, each at the minute given in its entry. Wealth Professional, 7:23 and 7:58 p.m. Just the News, 7:24. The Associated Press via PBS NewsHour, 7:24, and WMAR, 7:25; apnews.com itself could not be opened. Fox 13 Tampa, 7:33. investingLive recap, 7:28. TheStreet Pro live blog, 7:39, and its 3:52 p.m. note, 7:39. 24/7 Wall St., Fed card, 7:34. Investing.com, market story, 7:38 and 7:57. 24/7 Wall St., closing card, 7:28 and 7:58; the 12 October close of 7,807.24 per this register's entry 242. Trading Economics, stock market, 7:20. Seoul Economic Daily, 7:30, against Microsoft's release, 7:28. Newsquawk, ECB preview, 7:30.
Wednesday's close. S&P 500 7,743.98 (+21.38, +0.28%), Dow 52,475.10 (+97.53, +0.19%), Nasdaq 26,549.85 (+72.04, +0.27%), Russell 2000 2,830.51 (+11.64, +0.41%) per the Associated Press, 7:18; Yahoo Finance, 7:19; TheStreet Pro, 7:30; The Motley Fool, 7:20, which also gives the day's range, 7,718.37 to 7,758.43; TradingKey, 7:39. Tuesday's closes as No. 12 swore them.
The ten-year. Yahoo Finance ^TNX, 7:19; TheStreet Pro's wrap, 7:30; Forbes Advisor, 7:31; the Associated Press via BNN Bloomberg, 7:18; The Motley Fool, 7:20; Trading Economics, 7:26; Kiplinger, 7:27; Wolf Street, 7:37; Investing.com's widget, 7:38; Charles Schwab, 9:13 a.m. note, 7:27. The Treasury's par curve file: Tuesday's row 2-year 4.70, 10-year 4.99, 30-year 5.30; no Wednesday row at 7:31 or 7:47.
Oil. December WTI settled at $102.78, up 2.9 percent, beside December Brent at $115.32, up 1.3, per Bloomberg via Rigzone, 4:50 p.m. item, read 7:38; Tuesday's $99.90 and $113.88 as No. 12 had them. January Brent near $110.52 per Investing.com's evening item, 7:37. The December Brent expiry on Friday 30 October per ICE's expiry calendar, 7:38.
Thursday. The BEA schedule, 7:26. Consensus 3.2 on Trading Economics, 7:25, and Investing.com, 8:01; 3.0 at Briefing.com via Schwab's 9:13 a.m. note, FactSet via the AP, and Newsquawk's week-ahead, 7:31. The ECB's hour per Newsquawk and Trading Economics (13:15 and 13:45 GMT). The seven-year at $44 billion per tftc.io and Investrade; TreasuryDirect could not be opened. Earnings per the companies' own notices (Amazon, Intel, Merck, Mastercard, Caterpillar, Eli Lilly), 7:36 to 7:38. The Kansas City Fed, 7:39; NAR's schedule and topic page, 7:25 and 7:39; RSM, 7:40; Economic Weekly, 7:52. Alphabet's release, 7:29; the consensus values per Yahoo Finance, investingLive, 456X, TheStreet Pro, Cautious Optimism and Investing.com, 7:29 to 7:34. Microsoft's $45 billion with leases per investingLive's account of the call, 7:34, not the transcript.
The correction. Investing.com's release history, 8:01 p.m.: 1.5 (30 July), 1.5 (26 August), 2.2 (30 September); the BEA's advance release of 30 July as relayed, 7:42, giving the first quarter at 2.1.
This desk's arithmetic. Each sworn close less its change: 7,743.98 − 21.38 = 7,722.60; 52,475.10 − 97.53 = 52,377.57; 26,549.85 − 72.04 = 26,477.81; 2,830.51 − 11.64 = 2,818.87, Tuesday's closes. Investing.com's 7,750.88 against 7,722.60 is +0.37 percent. 24/7 Wall St.'s 7,738.81 less 16 is 7,722.81. Trading Economics' 52,509 less 132 is 52,377. investingLive's capex gap: 46 − 39 = 7. The Seoul Economic Daily's conversion: 123.8 trillion won ÷ $92.279 billion = 1,342 won per dollar. The time zones: 13:15 GMT − 4 hours = 9:15 EDT. Inputs printed.
The chronicle. 239 at the start of this issue; 250 after tonight's eleven additions, entries 243 to 253. Of the eleven, six are mislabelled figures, four are pages contradicting themselves and one is a pre-decision post surfacing as a decision.
The Decoy Chronicle — every entry, dated and sourced — is published as a standing register and updated with each issue.
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TrendyVest is an independent research practice. This is analysis and editorial opinion, not investment advice, and nothing here is a recommendation that any particular person buy or sell any security. Figures identified as this desk's arithmetic are the practice's own, and the inputs are printed alongside them.