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Latest · Monday 7 September 20263:21 AM EDT · 4 videos · 5 news and macro sources · 12 prediction markets

A September cut is priced out, and a ceasefire no longer reopens the Strait

A hike and a hold are within three points of each other for the 15-16 September meeting and a cut sits at 0.35%, while the August core-CPI market drifted cooler over the same 24 hours. Separately, ceasefire odds rose at every horizon on the day and the odds of the Strait of Hormuz reopening did not move with them.

1A September rate cut is off the board, and a hike is a coin flip
2The oil market prices a ceasefire and a still-shut Strait at the same time
3The largest capex cycle on record now runs on bond investors, not cash flow
4Copper and gold now out-earn iron ore at Australia's two largest miners

Today's calls

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Earlier

6 SeptSunday3:23 AM EDT

The September hike now turns on energy, not wages — and the ceasefire moved further away

August payrolls beat without any acceleration in wages, which leaves the case for a September hike resting on record diesel prices rather than a tight labour market. Joseph Wang argues the global yield surge is an oil story — and US strikes on three Iranian tankers on Saturday knocked twelve points off the odds of a ceasefire inside a week.

1A September hike is a coin flip, and the case for it rests on energy rather than wages
2The surge in global bond yields is an oil story, and the oil story got worse over the weekend
3The cash flows behind the AI buildout are moving between statements faster than they can be compared
4Two Asian regulators pushed back on single-stock leverage in the same week a US filing pushed it further
5The largest gold fund holds less metal per share every year, by design

5 SeptSaturday3:17 AM EDT

One jobs print flipped September to a hike, and the oil market stopped pricing relief

August payrolls came in at 162,000 and the deepest Fed contract flipped in one session — a September hike is now the base case, just ahead of a CPI print that both of Joseph Wang's co-panellists named as decisive. Meanwhile the ceasefire book and the shipping book moved in opposite directions.

1A September rate hike became the base case in a single session
2The oil market expects a ceasefire and a closed Strait at the same time
3Record AI earnings have stopped moving AI stocks
4A gross-margin miss is the most punished thing in this earnings season

4 SeptFriday3:16 AM EDT

The hike bet unwound before the jobs print, and the AI build lost its buyback bid

Odds on a September Federal Reserve rate hike fell nine points in one session and the market guessing August payrolls swung fifteen points toward a near-zero month, all before the number printed. Dan Niles, on Excess Returns, published the week's most emphatic hike call the same morning the bet came off.

1The rate-hike bet is unwinding on a jobs number nobody has seen yet
2The buyback bid that steadied the tape has been replaced by an equity raise
3Memory's shortage-to-2030 story has a China problem and a MacBook problem
4The day's single-name conviction sits in drug development, and one call is two weeks stale

3 SeptThursday3:16 AM EDT

A September hike went from near-certain to a coin flip, twelve hours before the jobs report

The market's odds on a September Federal Reserve rate hike fell nine points in a day, and the odds on $100 oil fell twelve, without a single macro release landing in between. Ian Bremmer expects the Iran war to run past the midterms; Matthew Klein and Felix Breen read the same 5% long yields as opposite things.

1The September hike bet came off nine points in a day with no new data behind it
2The oil premium is de-pricing faster than the war is de-escalating
3Whether 5% long yields are a crisis or a repricing depends on growth, and growth is the number that has not printed yet
4The AI build was financed on a rate assumption that has since inverted

2 SeptWednesday4:08 AM EDT

Washington tried to talk the bond market down — it priced in a rate hike instead

An off-schedule Treasury buyback meant to cap long-term borrowing costs left yields higher, and the market has moved to a 59.5% chance of a September rate hike — into a July payroll report that lost 23,000 jobs. Robert Armstrong, Ben Hunt and Kevin Muir disagree about whether the bond move is a crisis signal or an overdue repricing.

1The market is pricing a rate hike into an economy that lost 23,000 jobs
2A Treasury intervention aimed at the long end left it higher, not lower
3The long end unwound its post-Jackson-Hole rally within two sessions
4The AI buildout is now carrying the whole growth number

31 AugMonday1:47 PM EDT

The Iran ceasefire market went to zero, and a September rate rise became the favourite

Overnight strikes ended a ceasefire that a prediction market had priced at eighty-eight per cent the day before, pushing crude higher and taking back the energy relief that flattered the last two inflation prints. On the same morning the September rate contract crossed fifty per cent for the first time, while the long end of the curve moved the other way.

1The ceasefire market went to zero, and it took the part of inflation that was cooling with it
2A September rate rise is now the favourite, and the long end went the other way
3The risk in the AI trade may sit in the earnings rather than the multiple
4A California bill that did not pass cost a utility a quarter of its value in two sessions

30 AugSunday1:44 PM EDT

A September hike is near even money, and the part of inflation that is cooling is the part oil controls

The September rate contract moved another four points toward an increase and now sits within three points of even, while the options market prices the meeting as a non-event and hedging costs sit at ninety-day lows. A decomposition of the July inflation data argues that almost all of the recent cooling came from energy supply, which is the one component a Venezuelan oil agreement and a holding ceasefire can actually change.

1The hike contract keeps climbing while the cost of hedging it sits at ninety-day lows
2Cheaper oil cannot settle this inflation, because the part that is cooling is the part oil controls
3A midterm outcome priced at 89.5% is being hedged like a coin flip
4Regaining credibility as an inflation fighter now costs three hikes instead of one

29 AugSaturday1:45 PM EDT

A September hike is priced at a coin flip, and 65 billion barrels landed in an oil war

The September rate contract now splits almost evenly between an increase and no change, after thirteen points moved toward a hike in a week. In the same window, an agreement covering 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan reserves arrived while a naval blockade and a contested Strait of Hormuz were still constricting the barrels that reach refineries this quarter.

1The September decision is a coin flip on a hike, and the rates market has repriced where equity volatility has not
2Sixty-five billion barrels of reserves do not loosen a market that is short barrels this quarter
3The case against the AI trade is an argument about accounting, not about multiples
4The tariff fight with Canada runs against the trade data underneath it

28 AugFriday1:51 PM EDT

A September hike overtook a hold, and one capex number was bought and sold the same day

The September rate contract moved twenty-two points in a session and now prices an increase above no change, after the Federal Reserve Chairman said the summer's better inflation readings do not show the underlying trend improving. On the same day, the trillion-dollar capital-spending forecast behind the AI trade was used to justify both a fresh purchase and a warning that the money behind it is borrowed.

1The September contract flipped to a hike, and it moved twenty-two points in one session
2One capital-spending forecast was bought and sold on the same day
3The mania is not in the equity multiples — it is in the credit
4The Hormuz reopening is being priced further away for a second day

PGBFunlistedPDFIunlisted

27 AugThursday1:52 PM EDT

The written-off half of technology ran hardest, and the rate market still prices a rise over a cut

Three software names that had been marked down for years gained between 19% and 28% in a single session, outrunning the chip maker whose results set the move off. Against that, a Federal Reserve official stopped just short of calling for a rate increase, and the September contract still prices a rise at thirty percent and a cut at one.

1The rate market prices a September increase at 30% and a cut at 1%
2The written-off half of technology moved further today than the winning half
3A Hormuz agreement was announced and the market pricing it fell 14 points
4Risk appetite is priced at 268 times earnings in one market and 30% below par in another

26 AugWednesday1:49 PM EDT

The Treasury is buying its own long bonds into a market that prices a hike, and the AI trade gets marked tonight

The long bond sits at its highest since 2007 and the Treasury has doubled the programme it uses to push that yield down. The rate market is going the other way — a September rise is priced at one-in-three, a cut at almost nothing — and a count of eleven days of stock commentary found more than half of it landed on one trade, whose largest name reports after the close.

1The Treasury is buying its own long bonds into a market that prices a rise, not a cut
2Long duration has the best payoff table on the board, and only a recession collects it
3The ceasefire market is fading the sanctions escalation the metals trade is pricing
4Four of the five most-discussed stocks are the same trade, and the largest reports tonight