September 28, 2026

Fed press conferences began in 2011, and the chart below plots the total number of questions asked against the median words per answer for every one of them. At his June and July press conferences, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh followed the same pattern as previous Fed chairs, but in September, he took fewer questions and gave shorter, more focused answers, letting the rate hike speak more for itself. The bottom line is that Warsh is showing markets that the Fed can communicate clearly and concisely, with less noise and more signal.

September 27, 2026

Muse and similar agentic AI assistants could soon sweep household cash automatically into accounts paying 3.3% to 5.0%, instead of the 0.1% national average on checking accounts. If every household used AI agents to optimize the return on their cash balances, banks could lose a large share of the cheap deposits they rely on to make loans, which would be a problem for the entire financial system.

September 26, 2026

Rates are rising for reasons beyond a strong economy, with sticky inflation lifting yields in the front end, record hyperscaler debt issuance pressuring the belly and fiscal worries pushing up the long end. For credit, yields are well above their 10-year averages, with IG paying almost 6% and leveraged loans nearly 10%, but with spreads near all-time tights and stocks and bonds moving together, investors can no longer count on bonds to hedge their equity risk. For more, see this new chart book by my colleague Shobhit Gupta and me.