Happy almost-Halloween! We’re mere hours away from the spookiest, sugary-est day of the year, and I have already consumed hazardous volumes of candy. In my defence, I was teaching the children a valuable stock market lesson. You’re WELCOME.

I’m well past trick-or-treatin’ age, so tomorrow I’ll be cozied up watching scary movies (send me recos, I love ‘em). Whatever you’ll be up to, may the powers that be protect you from ghosts, goblins, and recession indicators.

– Shazia Khan, social media strategy manager

The takeaway: A late-week 12% plunge in Alphabet (Google) threatened to capsize the major US indices. Because Google commands such a heavy weighting across the board, its sharp sell-off dragged down the S&P 500, Nasdaq, and Dow, though each still managed to salvage positive gains for the week. Meanwhile, the TSX completely sidestepped the tech giant's turbulence. Insulated from Google's heavy influence and backed by a strong showing in domestic sectors, Canada closed the week firmly in the green.

The US hasn’t been making things easy on us lately, what with the relentless trade war and Trump’s campaign to rename Lake Ontario. (Stop trying to make Lake America happen. It’s not going to happen.) On Wednesday, the Bank of Canada raised interest rates for the first time since 2023, which BoC Governor Tiff Macklem admitted is “not going to feel good” – and the US is not exactly blameless in this decision. 

The BoC raises interest when inflation is rising too much. Because higher interest rates make loans more expensive to maintain, they leave consumers with less additional cash lying around. That makes people spend less and save more, which in turn slows inflation. 

Right now, inflation is sitting at 3.1%, and it’s projected to rise to about 3.5% by the end of the year. But, excluding gasoline, it was just 2.2% in September – much closer to the BoC’s 2% inflation target. In other words, fuel prices are the main culprit, but there’s a risk that they’ll spill over into the rest of the economy and drive up other prices for consumers. One rate hike may be enough to prevent this, but the BoC hasn’t ruled out the possibility of more increases. 

As for why fuel prices are so high, we can credit Trump’s war in Iran, which he says will end “whenever I want it to.” We say: when’s that?

Bottom Line: Halloween is tomorrow, but the rate hike might be the spookiest event of the week. At least it provides some costume inspo. How does one dress up as the rising cost of fuel? Asking for a friend…

by Ryan S. Gladwin

This is an excerpt of an article originally run in full on The Margin.

Patty Matton, an Ontario-based business student, was looking for a way to make some money to get through university. Reading tarot cards had been her party trick for some time, and she was curious about the world of witchery. So she opened up Etsy, hired a witch to cast a money spell to manifest herself a few bucks, and waited.

There was no grandiose ceremony of fire and blood. Instead, Matton just filled in a form, and within a few days received her proof: a photo of her name written on a bay leaf. The spell had been cast.

A month later, Matton had a sudden urge to post TikToks about her tarot hobby. Her first video hit 400,000 views within a matter of days, as did the next dozen or so. Riding the momentum, she opened an Etsy shop for remote tarot readings, and had sales within the first month. To Matton, that was the money spell at work: she’d turned a party trick into a job. Since then, she’s joined the ranks of the witches, offering spellwork learned from books by longtime practitioners.

Read more

Shazia Khan, social media strategy manager: Some spend late October perfecting Halloween costumes. I spend it watching the World Series. Yes, even when my team’s way, waaaay out of it. There are still plot twists and wild drama – I love a team from Milwaukee now??? – but this season, I’m fixated on the subplot of the slow home run trot.

Stay with me, non-baseball normies: hitting a big dinger requires one to jog all 360 feet around the bases while the pitcher contemplates his life choices, and some onlookers have very big feelings about it. Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero made headlines by taking 38.7 seconds to savour one homer, and he’s not alone: half of the 10 slowest trots on record happened this year, all by guys who made the WS.

Old-schoolers hate this. Hall of Famer Goose Gossage found Caminero “hard to really watch” and wanted to “put one right in his ribs next time up” (yep, same guy who cried about Jose Bautista’s iconic bat flip). But baseball has spent years fighting the “boring” rep by investing in young, fired-up, international stars – ones small-market teams can actually afford. Swaggy victory laps are proof that’s working. “Let the kids play,” remember?

From The Margin group chat:

If you liked this newsletter, hated this newsletter, or are totally indifferent to it, hit the reply button and tell us why! We’re so lonely.

This week’s contributors: Tyler Haw (audience engagement), Amarah Hasham-Steele (staff writer), Shazia Khan (social media strategy manager), Anthony Milton (content lead), Martin Molpeceres (social video producer), Kat Angus (deputy editor), and Eric Wainwright (editor in chief).

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