Halloween charts: may contain graph-ic content

Consumption, inflation and financial-market risks are becoming more fragile as households draw down savings, refining capacity constrains fuel prices, housing activity remains depressed, credit spreads offer little cushion, hyperscaler investment leans increasingly on debt, and France loses its traditional core-market status.

• Real spending rose 2.6% year on year in the latest release, against only 0.8% growth in real personal income excluding transfers; spending has exceeded income growth every month since mid-2024, increasingly drawing on savings.
• The refining premium in US diesel prices has roughly quadrupled during 2026, pushing pump prices above $6 per gallon and creating a potentially more persistent inflation problem than crude oil prices alone.
• Existing US home sales are running at 4.75% of owner-occupied housing units, below the 5.1% post-crisis low in 2010 and roughly half the 9.6% level reached in 2005, as homeowners resist refinancing at higher mortgage rates.
• In US investment grade credit, the spread represents about 14% of the corporate bond yield, the lowest share since 1998; comparable starting points have historically produced weak excess returns.
• Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Oracle are allocating 82% of combined operating cash flow to capex, versus 40% in early 2024 and 27% a decade ago, while France's 10-year yield has moved above Italy's and materially above Spain's.

Takeaway: The author sees a cluster of vulnerabilities rather than a single shock, with depleted household savings, refinery-driven inflation, weak housing turnover, tight credit spreads and debt-funded data-centre spending leaving investors with limited margin for error; the historical relationships are cautionary rather than deterministic.