CME's FedWatch has Wednesday's quarter point at 94.5%, up from under half a month ago, and the ten-year at 5.04% shows bond desks bought it in advance. The forecasts still diverge on what follows.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives50
- Confidence40
Wireless telephone services rose 5.9% in August, the most the BLS has ever recorded for the category, and without that one line core inflation rounds to the 0.2% economists expected. Traders moved hike odds to 85% anyway.
ISM's services prices index rose to 74.0 in September, its highest reading since July 2022, even as the sector's growth cooled. Cost increases that widespread, after September's quarter-point Fed hike, make an early cut harder to justify.
Reality
- Evidence72
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence66
Donald Trump's $5,000 'Trump Dividend' would cost about $1.2 trillion and needs Congress to pass it after a Republican sweep on Nov. 3. The $90 Medicare rebates due around Oct. 8 come from a fund that already holds the money, so only one of the two checks is paid for.
Perspective Coverage
7 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 12%
- Operator
- Operator 47%
- Investor
- Investor 41%
Reality
- Evidence74
- Adoption52
- Hype gap+34
- Incentives66
- Confidence70
Cathie Wood cites 99.99% annual falls in AI inference costs against Bill Ackman's warning that the Fed's September hike won't slow AI spending. Her figures price AI's output and his worry is demand for its inputs, so both can hold at once.
Reality
- Evidence30
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+35
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence35
Fed Governor Lisa Cook says about $2 trillion in announced AI investment is pushing up input costs such as electricity before it delivers productivity gains. Her doubt that the Fed can still look through supply shocks links data-center spending to rates in 2027.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence60
US 10-year Treasury yields rose to 5.30% on Wednesday, their highest since 2002, even though inflation came in cooler. Whatever drove it, growth or government debt, a cash-flow model that counted on cooling inflation to lower its discount rate now needs a higher one.
Perspective Coverage
4 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 5%
- Operator
- Operator 16%
- Investor
- Investor 79%
Reality
- Evidence85
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives25
- Confidence80
New York Fed President John Williams lists AI demand for chips and power equipment among the forces behind inflation he forecasts at 3.5% for 2026. He also said the productivity payoff that would argue for easier policy has yet to show up in the data.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence40
Fed Governor Michael Barr said more rate hikes are likely needed, citing inflation above 2% for five-plus years and a surge in data center investment. He also urged planning now for AI job losses, casting the technology as a price pressure today and a labor risk later.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence60
Australia's Reserve Bank raised its cash rate a quarter point to 4.60% on Sept. 29, its highest level in 15 years. It is tightening into a housing downturn because it believes higher fuel costs are now passing into the prices of other goods and services.
Reality
- Evidence70
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence72
Australia's central bank lifted its cash rate to a 15-year high of 4.60% on Sept 29, its fourth hike of 2026. The board says it is ready to go further, so teams on floating Australian rates should plan for one more step into early 2027.
Reality
- Evidence60
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence55
Bank of Korea says momentum behind domino price hikes is building, with more than 30 firms announcing increases this year against 32 in all of last year. The bank's bad-case oil scenario adds four times as much to next year's inflation as to this year's.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption55
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence55
Traders betting on lasting inflation pushed the 10-year Treasury yield to 5.145% on Thursday, its highest since the 2007 financial crisis. Oil back above $105 keeps that bet alive, and AXA's chief economist names two more pressures, tech-sector borrowing and US debt, that would survive a truce.
Reality
- Evidence70
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+10
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence65
New York Fed President John Williams called one more rate hike this year reasonable, citing AI investment demand and energy prices with inflation at 3.4%. Sixteen of 18 Fed officials project at least one more move, so borrowers should plan on a policy range of 4% to 4.25% or higher by year-end.
Reality
- Evidence72
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence75
Fortune's account of the global selloff traces a chain from oil above $100 a barrel to the debt behind AI data centers. The single testable number in it is a yield level named by one investment chief.
Perspective Coverage
3 publishers
- Builder
- Builder 7%
- Operator
- Operator 53%
- Investor
- Investor 40%
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+20
- Incentives45
- Confidence58
Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin said tariffs, gasoline and AI spending are keeping inflation up after the Fed's first rate increase since mid-2023. Planning for cuts now means betting against the persistence Barkin described.
Reality
- Evidence45
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap0
- Incentives
- Insufficient
- Confidence55
Bond traders price about 100bp of further Fed hikes by next summer, with the 10-year Treasury yield up 121bp to 5.18% since the attack on Iran. Borrowers who planned around cuts are now betting against a Fed that voted unanimously to hike eight days ago.
Reality
- Evidence35
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap+15
- Incentives35
- Confidence35
The American Bankers Association's committee of 15 bank economists has PCE inflation peaking at 3.8% and falling to about 2.2% by the end of 2027, while the policy rate stays where December leaves it. Borrowers pay the difference.
Reality
- Evidence58
- Adoption
- Insufficient
- Hype gap−8
- Incentives68
- Confidence52
Governor Michael Barr thinks last week's increase probably will not get inflation back to 2%. The committee's own projections leave floating-rate borrowers budgeting for either one more quarter point or two before December.
Reality
- Evidence55
- Adoption35
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives55
- Confidence55
The Fed lifted its target range to 3.75% to 4% on Sept. 16 in a unanimous vote. Two days earlier the 10-year Treasury had crossed 5%, a level set by forces the committee's instrument does not reach.
Reality
- Evidence62
- Adoption50
- Hype gap+12
- Incentives45
- Confidence55
Earlier coverage
- Macklem's conditional hike would start from a real policy rate of minus 0.75
Invest · September 21, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- Bank of Korea traces 41% of Korea-US long-rate co-movement to American inflation
Invest · September 19, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- The 0.4-point tax-refund tailwind in 2026 growth is projected to reverse next year
Leadership · September 20, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- Warsh and Fed board unanimously approve quarter-point rate hike to fight inflation
Product · September 16, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- A 100-basis-point rise in the 10-year left the real yield exactly where it started
Invest · September 15, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- Korean investors bought $218m of three-month Treasuries in the month before the ten-year cleared 5%
Invest · September 15, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- Futures leave the Fed's surprise in an 11.5% chance of a hold
Invest · September 14, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- Bessent's howitzer line gives Warsh cover to hike into White House pressure
Invest · September 14, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- Yen rallies 7.5% as BOJ widely expected to hike rate to 31-year high
Invest · September 13, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- Gilt yields at 5.4% sit 165 basis points above the rate the Bank of England held in July
Invest · September 13, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- Government payrolls account for the whole of July's 23,000-job decline
Invest · August 29, 2026 · 3 publishersConfirmed
- BNP Paribas calls for three Fed hikes that would exactly undo its 2025 cuts
Invest · September 11, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- A Wharton economist prices Trump's $5,000 dividend at $1.35 trillion of new borrowing
Invest · September 11, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- 10-year yield has added 80 basis points since the Fed started cutting
Invest · September 6, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- Warsh's first Jackson Hole keynote moves September hike odds to 50-60%
Invest · September 5, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- September Fed hike odds climb to 45.5% from 31% in a week
Invest · August 30, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- Warsh's Silence Has a Price, and the Long End Is Paying It
Invest · August 23, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report
- Tokyo's 3.8% assumption: debt service eats two-thirds of Japan's budget increase
Invest · August 23, 2026 · 1 publisherOne report