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Flying Blind, Cutting For A Boost Anyway

Data’s dark, rates still likely down. Here’s how to play a cut without clarity.

Author

Noah Zelvis
October 19, 2025

The Fed likes clean dashboards. Right now, half the gauges are taped over. Thanks to the shutdown, the usual gold standard reports (jobs, spending) are delayed.

No one’s in the mood for a bigger slice without proof that the job market fell off a cliff, and we can’t see the cliff.

Here’s how to position your portfolio.

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What The Blackout Changes (And Doesn’t)

  • Path of least resistance: With no fresh payrolls and only a late CPI landing (now expected 10/24), the simplest outcome is one more 0.25% trim. A hold would have needed hot jobs AND upward revisions; we didn’t get the prints.

  • Why cuts still win: Hiring cooled into late summer, inflation is sticky but not sprinting, and Powell keeps saying there’s no risk-free path. When in doubt, nudge toward employment.

  • But not a free-for-all: Without hard data, the bigger-cut camp can’t win votes. December becomes the show-me meeting once the release backlog drops.

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How The Shutdown Is Biting Outside The Fed

Federal workers and contractors are missing checks or work hours, business loans, permits, and some closings are stuck in limbo, airports are tense, and the official stats that steer exec decisions are late. That combo squeezes confidence at the edges, which is exactly when a small rate cut helps keep the wheels on.

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What This Means For Your Money

  • Mortgages: Another cut plus the we’re flying blind tone can ease longer yields. Treat dips like limited-time coupons,have documents ready, lock when the number fits your budget.

  • Credit cards & HELOCs: APR relief drips in, but don’t celebrate. Accelerate your payoff.

  • Savings: High-yield accounts will drift. A simple Treasury ladder (3–12 months) keeps your cash earning while you wait out the data fog.

  • Stocks: Expect choppier days as markets trade on private proxies (ADP jobs, card-spend trackers, job-postings) and Fed-speak. Rate-sensitives, domestic operators, and cash-flow grown-ups have the edge.

The Quick Watchlist (Until The Data Lights Come Back On)

  • Oct 24 CPI print: If core looks tame, December odds for another trim rise. If it’s hot, the Fed leans one and wait.

  • Private labor proxies: ADP employment, Indeed postings, Homebase hours, none perfect, together useful.

  • Card-spend & foot-traffic: Banks’ weekly trackers, OpenTable, airlines’ booking commentary.

  • Corporate chatter: Guidance shifts on margins and hiring will lead the government data by weeks.

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Positioning playbook (friendly edition)

  • Barbell the boring with the building: Keep resilient cash-flow names and add policy-friendly cyclicals tied to U.S. infrastructure and supply-chain re-routing.

  • Favor tariff-light bills of material: Domestic inputs mean more than import guessing games.

  • Price-makers over price-takers: If promos pick up while costs wobble, brands with good-better-best and must-have services keep margins intact.

  • Stage entries: Buy in thirds around the meeting. Headlines end shutdowns fast, you don’t want to be all-in or all-out.

Coffee-Napkin Takeaways

  • Data blackout = small cut is the easy button, big cut needs proof.

  • CPI on 10/24 is the swing factor for December.

  • Shutdown pain is real at the edges, a trim cushions confidence.

  • Own domestic, cash-rich, policy-aligned names; add in slices.

Top Picks

Automatic Data Processing (NASDAQ: ADP)

When the BLS goes quiet, everyone reads ADP. Beyond the cameo as a macro proxy, the real thesis is boring-beautiful.

Recurring payroll and HR subscriptions, sticky clients, high free cash flow, and pricing power via bundled services (HRIS, benefits admin, compliance). 

A slower Fed plus steadier labor, soft, not broken, keeps churn low and float income respectable even as rates inch down.

Upside drivers: continued migration from in-house payroll to cloud suites, cross-sell into mid-market, and incremental automation that widens margins.

Risks: a sharper labor drop would dent payslips processed; we’d use that volatility to add.

Verisk Analytics (NASDAQ: VRSK)

Insurance underwriters still need loss-cost math whether CPI is late or not. Verisk sells the plumbing: catastrophe models, risk scoring, anti-fraud tools, and regulatory data pipes.

That mission-critical, embedded in workflow posture means pricing power and durable growth through cycles. 

In a rate-cut, lower-vol backdrop, insurers lean into analytics to defend combined ratios, and Verisk’s mix shift toward higher-value analytic products helps margins expand.

Tariff drama is largely irrelevant. With a shutdown, clients still need to price risk and bind policies daily. Think of VRSK as a compounding tollbooth on the insurance data highway.

Quanta Services (NYSE: PWR)

Grid hardening, transmission, EV infrastructure, and data-center power don’t wait for a clean macro readout.

Quanta builds and maintains the electric and utility backbone, with multi-year backlogs and scarce skilled labor as a moat. Another cut lowers financing costs for utilities and developers at the margin, while any December follow-through greases project starts. 

Tariff noise on metals are often passed through. Shutdown has little affect, as most funding flows at the state/utility level.

Watch the book-to-bill and transmission awards, and the secular runway (AI power demand + aging grid) is long, and execution has been best-in-class.

Ollie’s Bargain Outlet (NASDAQ: OLLI)

If confidence wobbles and promos proliferate, off-price wins more treasure hunts. Ollie’s buys closeouts and excess inventory cheap, then turns value into foot traffic without training customers to wait for coupons.

It’s domestic, largely tariff-light by design, and benefits when full-line retailers get inventory-shy.

Rate trims don’t change the model, but they just help the consumer avoid breaking. Store growth is self-funded, unit economics are strong, and new-market productivity has improved.

Risks are execution and occasional thin closeout pipelines, but the current backdrop tends to refill the deal shelf.

Risk Management (three quick moves)

  1. Scale buys around the meeting and the 10/24 CPI, let the tape come to you.

  2. Hedge tariff shocks if you’re heavy global cyclicals, even a de-escalate week can flip.

  3. Keep some duration, not all duration: 5–10yr can work into cuts, but hold short rungs so you can pivot if inflation prints hot.

Bottom line: the Fed is likely to trim with one eye closed, then reassess when the data lights flicker back on. Build a calm, domestic-tilted portfolio that doesn’t need perfect clarity to compound.

That’s it for today’s edition—thanks for reading! Reply to this email with any feedback or let me know which macro trends or markets you’d like me to cover next.

Best Regards,
—Noah Zelvis
Macro Notes