Moody's Talks - Inside Economics - Hikes and Haircuts

Episode Date: September 18, 2026

The Fed met this week and gave the Inside Economics crew a lot to talk about. Joining the fray are three colleagues, Martin Wurm, Justin Begley, and Matt Colyar. Opinions varied on the wisdom of September’s rate hike, how much of an attempt it was to signal Chair Warsh’s independence from the White House, and the likelihood that more hikes are in tow. The group plays the numbers game and debates what changes should be made to Moody’s Analytics baseline forecast after Wednesday’s meeting. All of this is prefaced by a lengthy conversation about everyone’s hair (or lack thereof). Hosts: Mark Zandi – Chief Economist, Moody’s Analytics, Cris deRitis – Deputy Chief Economist, Moody’s Analytics, and Marisa DiNatale – Senior Director - Head of Global Forecasting, Moody’s AnalyticsFollow Mark Zandi on 'X' and BlueSky @MarkZandi, Cris deRitis on LinkedIn, and Marisa DiNatale on LinkedIn Questions or Comments, please email us at [e-mail]. We would love to hear from you. To stay informed and follow the insights of Moody's Analytics economists, visit Economic View. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to Inside Economics. I'm Mark Sandy, the chief economist of Moody's Analytics, and I'm joined by, whoa, a bunch of my colleagues. My two co-host, trusty co-host, Chris DeRees, Marissa Dina Talley. Hi, guys. Hi, Mark. Good morning. Good to see him. Good morning.

Good morning. And we have other colleagues, regulars, I'd say, at this point. We've got Matt Collier. Hey, Matt. Hey, Mark. How's it going? Matt. Matt's our man on inflation and pretty much everything else, too.

You're the man for everything. So glad you're with us. We've got Martin, Martin Worm. Everyone knows Martin. He follows the Fed and all things Fed and all things financial system and all things financial institutions. Hey, Martin, how are you? Good. I'm having a bad hair day.

Really? I did not notice. It's a podcast. It's hard to see. What makes for a bad hair day in your book? I've been wrestling with different headphones and now it's just everywhere. You know, at my age, you know, I'm very happy to have any hair at all, so there's no such thing as a bad hair day. Anyway, but good to have you on board.

And we have Justin, Justin Begley. Hey, Justin. Hey, Mark. How are you? I, on the opposite hand, have a very good hair day because I just got a haircut. Oh. Justin, how often do you get your haircut? Is that too personal a question?

or? I get cut, I get it cut once a month. Once a month, once a month. That's free. It's high regularity. Yeah. It seems like,

well, you know, everything's got to be shaped properly. Yeah. And you got, you got good hair. Okay. If it gets too long, then I can't,

I can't design it well, so. What about you, Matt? How often do you get your hair cut? Uh, hair is a touchy subject. Really? Really, why is that touchy? It's just sparse. It's increasingly.

No, you look. Oh, no. Come on. Yeah. You look great. It's a receding hairline. It's more scalp than I'm comfortable with, so it's getting shorter and shorter. But my wife gives me honest feedback, which is nice.

So anyway. But you didn't tell us how you're sporting a new haircut. It's shorter, if you might notice. Yeah. Yeah, it's okay. I'm comfortable with balding. It happens with age, but it's, you know, I'm ready for it. Actually, though, Chris has the best hair of any of us by orders with magnets.

too. Don't you think? I don't think. I think Marissa takes the cake. I like, it's fair too. I like Martin's long hair back in the day. I did too. I missed that. Yeah. I can grow it back out. Must be nice. Here it is. It must be nice. Yeah, that's good.

All right. Just for us. Talk about inflation, though. Haircuts are expensive. Oh, yeah. Oh, is that right? Oh, my gosh. Oh, yeah. I think I was paying about $18 a haircut back in 2020. Now it's like $38. I'm like, oh my gosh, more than doubled. Yeah.

When you said $18. I know, I know. When I go get my haircut, it is, I want to say it's $150 now. Whoa. I heard it cut like half an inch off my hair. What's that all about? And then when I get it colored, it's like $250 for the whole thing. And you're there all day.

That's insane. When my wife goes to get her hair done, I just say, don't tell me. Don't tell me what it cost. But you get, you, this may be too personal, but how often do you get your hair cut? It can't be every month, no? For me? Yeah, it's got to be. No, no, it's every six weeks.

Oh, it is every six weeks. Okay. Yeah, every six or seven weeks. I get it cut. Okay. Well, actually, if we really want to get into this. No, and now I'm getting it cut. like every 12 weeks. I'm getting it colored every six weeks. So it's always like well over $200,

no matter what I do. Right. Right. Is that inflation related? Are you, uh, it's got, it has certainly gone up. Yes. But it's, I mean, for women's, women's hair is, I mean, I think that's pretty typical. So I really want to hear you guys complaining about your $30 haircuts. I'm shuckling, I remember back to the pandemic when we weren't getting our haircut. My wife would try to, it's very funny how she would cut my hair. My daughter came home after a few months ago. You look like you have a mushroom on your head. Very, very funny.

Don't tell my wife I said that. I was very appreciative of the haircuts I got. Anyway, we should move on. We should get down to business. And, of course, this past week, the big news was the Fed meeting. The FOMC met. They raised interest rates. Let me turn to you, Matt, because you cover it, the Fed for us on economic view.

You want to give us the rundown, the nuts and bolts of what they did? Yeah. So at a high level, 25 basis point increase to the federal funds rate. Anticipated beforehand by bond markets, I think in the days leading up, we knew that was what was coming, even if that wasn't our most recent baseline. We can talk about why that changed. but primarily, hotter inflation data in August, a little bit of change of tone from Chair Warsh. So consensus expectations leading up to the meeting

if we were going to get this first rate hike, first rate hike since 2023, when the Fed, after the pandemic, about of inflation, stopped all the policy tightening that they did then. As far as the statement goes, as far as the press conference goes after, we're getting used to more Spartan communication from the Fed,

and that's what we got. So not a ton to dig into there. But the most important communication, the most important data, most interesting, would be the updated projections from Fed policymakers that we get every other meeting. So the summary of economic projections was released in September. And there we get a sense of what policymakers are thinking about in terms of the rest of this year. Is there more cuts cut or more hikes coming? what about next year? Are we revising growth, unemployment, inflation outlooks? What is what's the kind of evolution of thinking there? And there there's a ton to unpack as well as just kind of the rationale given by Chair Warsh afterwards in the press conference about why now. And the only other tidbit I would say is that the unanimity of the decision, I think there's a little bit of word ambiguity there too in

the release statement. It's this statement was released. with 12 to zero, the voting members all agreed to release the statement. Does that mean that they're all 100% on board with the rate hike? We can debate that, but they were all okay with the statement being released and that statement included the rate hike. So that's the general synopsis, market reaction we can get into what it means for our forecast, for the next couple meetings, what we think is going to happen. I think is up for debate, but that's my read of it. Yeah, you're taking my job, Matt. What the heck? too much. Well, yeah, no, you're kind of saying this is what we're going to do. That's what I do for

living here, you know? That's my job. But you did a pretty good job at it. Yeah, you kind of nailed it. So the Fed raised rates a quarter point. The target range is now, what, three and three quarters to four percent. And with this decision, we get three pieces of information, broadly speaking. one is the statement that we get with the with the decision to to change interest rates. The second is the press conference that happened, you know, right after the release of the statement. And by the way, did you watch the press conference? Of course. Yeah.

Who else watched? Martin, did you watch? Did you got anybody else watch the? Yeah. I didn't watch. Yeah. Snibets. It wasn't really much to watch, though, right?

I mean, it was very short, very terse. I'm not sure I learned anything from either the statement or the press conference. Was there anything in the statement of the press conference that were you learned that? No, there's definitely a consistent emphasis that Treher Warsh has in not saying what data points matter the most and not saying anything. And I think this is debatable, but not saying anything that could be interpreted as a reaction function. I'd go say, not say anything, right? I mean, did he say anything? I think the most interesting thing that I was focused on is that he said that everybody

supported the rate hike in a way that was more explicit, and that's not verbatim, but in a way that was more explicit than what was in this statement, because I don't take that statement to read, you know, previous statements. So in the PAL Fed, you'd have, you know, voting for this rate hike were XYZ voting members, voting against it were these three or these one or two. These are the dissents. We don't have that as clear now. So I was really focused on whether he said that everyone thought a rate hike was appropriate. I thought he hinted towards that. But here we are. We're reading tea leaves and trying to interpret stuff that's just way less transparent than what we had before. So on the whole,

no, I don't think we learned a ton in the press conference. And maybe some sense that it's just an inflationary story is what's happening here. And we can think. about that more in depth, but yeah, generally kind of blend. Martin, you listen to the press conference. Did you learn anything? Yeah, I do want to say one thing to this. I mean, there's obviously a very historic shift here in between Jerome Powell and Kevin Warsh.

Jerome Powell would walk us through the details of what's happening in economy and what the committees thinks about the various factors. The one thing that Kevin Wurge keeps saying over and over again from Jackson Hall to these press conference, though, is this commitment to price stability. And I do think the market reads that in. There is sort of a sense that the Fed potentially has become a little bit more hawkish and started to expect this cut ahead of the actual meeting. Beyond that, I don't think we learned that much.

I mean, I think if Gavin Wisch came out instead of all of a sudden, I'm really worried about the unemployment rate that would cause a shift, but that really hasn't happened. The theme has always been price stability really from the beginning. Got it. Okay. And then the other piece of information we always get, well, once a quarter, is the SEP, the summary of economic projections.

and you know what I find bizarre there is I never really used to look at that dot plot very, very often. I mean, I looked at it, but I didn't really kind of spend a whole lot of time on it. Now that's the only thing we got, basically, isn't it, Matt? I mean. Yeah, there's a kind of irony there that in pulling back how much the Fed is revealing, they're forcing market participants, forcing people like us to emphasize things to a greater degree and kind of make their own assumptions. that certainly seems to be what's happening. And the dot plot, it was interesting. So the dot plot is just a visualization of where policymakers on the FOMC are expecting various.

Well, for the dot plot, it's the Fed Funds rate, but we get similar projections in different formats for other key variables. But the key takeaway there is that a pretty, you know, a really clear majority of FOMC members expect at least another rate hike this year. Next year, not so much, not on a ton of activity. looks like. But for this year, and there's two meetings left, a very clear majority expects at least one with four members assuming two rate hikes this year. Only two assumed, and these are anonymous, but only two of those FOMC members assumed were okay as is, and there's no future

rate hikes coming. Yeah, and of course they don't tell us when, you know, whether it's going to be the October meeting or the December meeting, we don't know, but we know that they're saying the A clear majority are saying one more quarter point rate hike before the end of the year. That's what we know from the dot plot. That's right. And the other key piece of information in the SEP, the summary of economic projections, is their forecasts for the funds rate, the – I should say, real GDP growth, the unemployment rate, inflation, and the funds rate. You learn anything from that? The GDP and unemployment both look marginally better.

We're talking tenths of a percentage. point in the direction you want to see, but nothing meaningful, I would say there. The inflationary outlooks both worsened by about a tenth of percentage point. So expectation, 3.7% year over year, PC inflation in Q4 of 26. Core PC, 3.4%. And then modest pretty solid improvement towards the Fed's target by 2028. But in general, that's not where I found the story to be so much as it's, you know, the rate path. Got it. And I should say on that, Going back to the dot plot, Kevin Warsh made it clear that he did not participate in that exercise. So there's no dot that represents his views in that.

Right. It's back to his view that the Fed should be less transparent about, you know, providing that kind of information. Hey, Chris, did you watch, or Marissa, Justin, did you guys have a chance to watch the press conference? Did any of you guys watch it? I didn't get to watch it. You did not. What about you? I read this again, but not.

Yeah, Chris, did you see it? Yeah, Sam, I was traveling. Yeah, you didn't. And Justin, did you have a chance? No, I didn't get the chance. Okay. You missed nothing. I'm just saying.

Yeah, it was brief. It was literally a half hour, and he spent no more than 30 seconds. How many? I heard it was 16 questions, and that interesting factoid is that the journalists are now put in alphabetical order. Oh. Is that what was going on? I was wondering. That was bothering me watching that.

the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, people that are in the front row were not. So it's how political? Yeah. Yeah, usually, yeah, typically they put the higher profile journalist in the front. Oh, how do you interpret that? What is that? Changing on the guard, I guess. I think he's a big Axios fan and, you know.

Okay. Political Atlantic. I don't know. I guess it's a nod towards some objectivity that they're not playing favorites. It's just. Right. I don't know. Interesting.

Interesting. thing. Okay, so the interpretation of all this, Martin, what do you think? How do you interpret what's going on here and what it all means for future monetary policy? Yeah, it's an interesting hike in the sense that the economics don't scream hiking. Inflation certainly is running above target has for some time. But if you look at longer term inflation expectations, there's really no unanchoring at risk like we saw in 2021. We have an oil price shock, which is a temporary shock. Usually the wisdom for a central bank is to say, well, we see it through. All the prices come up today. At some point in the future, come back down again. There's not really a reason to hike. And at the same time, the labor market is much more in equilibrium than it was in 2021.

So unemployment is at or maybe a little bit above sort of equilibrium. Unemployment is not a whole load of wage pressure. So it doesn't really feel like the Fed has to hike in this scenario. It certainly is not a scenario where the Fed will hike, you know, 10, 10, 12 times like it was in 2021. one. That's certainly a difference here. So there is a sense that for one, it's a bit of a signal. So Kevin Warsh comes in. He presents himself as a hawk. Inflation is above target. There is some concern about Fed independence that's been circulating. And if the Fed now unanimously high, it definitely sends a signal to Marraga-Sale. We are committed to inflation. We're committed to

price stability. We're going to continue to keep the ball really running, if we will. The other sort of potential explanation is to say, well, we're sort of thinking about the stance of monetary policy. There is all this growth in the economy. Productivity growth is picking up as AI. Maybe the neutral rate has increased a little bit. And monetary policy isn't quite as restrictive as we previously thought. In that case, it's sort of a minor adjustment in that direction. I think both of these explanations have some merit here. What it definitely isn't, it's not an emergency scenario. It's not that inflation is running way into the Fed has to hike. in this particular moment. All right. So can you just explain the neutral rate for the listener? You know, what is the neutral rate?

Yeah, so the neutral rate is the rate at which monetary policy neither stimulates economic activity nor dampens on economic activity. It is not something that we know. It is something that we have to estimate. It depends, broadly speaking, on really underlying deep fundamentals of the economy. It's like how quickly are we growing potentially. That determines the rate of return on capital in equilibrium. If the Fed wants to dampen demand,

it will raise the rate above that, that acts disinflationary. If the Fed wants to stimulate demand, typically a recession, it lowers the rate below that, and that will, you know, act, it will stimulate demand, it will act a little bit inflationary. And if you're above inflation, what you want to do is you want to keep the rate a little bit higher than that to make sure that you come back to target inflation. Now, the neutral rate is not known. It is something that we have to estimate. Historically, I would say coming out of the pandemic, the Fed would have said it's something around 3%.

There again is a bit of an indication, the SCP there. The Fed has now sort of brought it up a little bit over time. And it's really related to this idea of AI growth, causing higher productivity growth. Maybe rates need to be a little bit higher to rain in inflation. Right. So the SEP, the summary of economic projections, that's the last time I'll say that. It's the SEP. It showed that the members that provided their forecast now think the neutral rate,

I think is three and a quarter percent. It had been three. It's been pushing up over the last couple of meetings and now at three and a quarter percent. And as you know, the target now is three and three quarters to four. So that would suggest that monetary policy, you know, according to the consensus view on the FOMC, is restrictive, that it's working to restrict economic activity. Do I have that right? That appears to be the consensus. Okay. I mean, so we could go and the detail if that rate that people list there really is the neutral rate because it just is the long-term rate, which is maybe not the same thing, right? It depends on how you interpret that. But generally, this is how markets tend to read it. There are some members of the FMC, like Kashkari

and so forth who think the neutral rate is much higher than that, but that's not the consensus view. That's a good point. It says long-run forecast, and the long-run forecast... Yeah, what does that mean? It feels like that should be the neutral rate, but it could be the long run. It doesn't necessarily mean that's the neutral rate today. You know, so that's a good point. That's right. Hey, Justin, what was your interpretation of all this? You heard Martin's perspective, anything to add or push back on?

Well, no, nothing to push back on. It's just been interesting to me. I was pretty in favor of the argument that, you know, where inflationary pressures are coming from, that monetary policy is not the best instrument to deal with supply side shocks, input, you know, taxes from tariffs that are driving up prices. And so the hawkish turn that the Fed has taken is somewhat interesting. It almost, as has been discussed, as the top plot suggests, it almost demands another cut because, you know, what does 25 basis points do, you know,

and kind of to bring down prices. But I am interesting to see where the Fed ends up turning when it, when it comes to what they think the neutral rate actually is, because I think that'll be determinative that if they think that monetary policy can really slow the inflation pressures that the economy is currently facing, then it'll be revealing about how much they think that they have to raise rates. You know, right now, dot plot suggests anywhere from 25 to 50 basis points more over the next, you know, I would say by six to 10 months. So we'll see where it goes.

But I'm not so sure how good of a two, tool monetary policy is to just deal with the current inflationary pressures. So if you were on the FMC, Justin, how would you have voted here? Would you have gone with the rest of the committee and voted to raise rates or not? For credibility, I probably would have voted to raise rates. It's hard to be that one, you know, that one kind of outstanding no votes. But

and that kind of speaks to kind of why, you know, the Fed might even be raising rates at all. You know, namely, they have to signal the markets that they're taking inflation seriously and that, you know, as the economy looks like from an unemployment perspective, and we can, you know, debate how valid the unemployment rate actually is given the labor supply issues. But from an unemployment perspective, the economy looks like it's at full employment. We got a good jobs number in August and that might continue going, you know, going forward. But inflation is accelerating. So you have to signal the markets that you're taking the seriously and that you're going to get inflation out of control,

even if that's just by raising, you know, 50 or so basis points, you know, over the next couple of months. Got it, got it. So you're saying based on the economics, you might not have voted to raise rates, but given the need to establish or reaffirm credibility, you would vote for a rate increase. Yeah, yeah. And that's circumstantial, right? Because, you know, some of that, you know, maybe that wouldn't be necessary if there wasn't

a transition at the chair. But since there was, you know, and there's speculation about Fed independence, you know, this kind of helps solidify some of that. Got it. Martin, back to you. If you were on the FMC, what would you have done here? You weren't going to ask me that. I'd have said it's before I lean more hawkish than the rest of the group.

I would have hiked, but I would have done it anyway. And that has largely to do with the fact that I just probably weigh price stability a little bit more heavily in a reaction function. Maybe it's because I'm German. I mean, it could be the reason. Yeah, the Bundes bank always want to raise rates, yeah, for sure. I do think we are just a little. Inflation has not been coming in for the past two years

in the way that it needed to, really, if we really target 2% inflation. And the labor market's not so out of thing that I think the rate is too high. Well, what about Justin's argument that rate hikes isn't going to solve the Iran war? I mean, or the tariffs or the... No, no, it isn't.

It isn't the Iran war, but there's other stuff going on, right? So in 2025, even before all this started, we were on a target then and we weren't moving towards target. Right. So if it's terrorist or uncertainty, whatever it is. No, we were moving towards target, don't you? No, don't you think if you go back on and off. I think we, I think we were before 2025 for sure. Right.

Since 2025, I'm not so sure about that. I think it goes back and forth. Okay. Definitely not in 2026. And that a big part of this is the Iran war, I agree. That should be temporary. I will also say that the other sort of big argument, economic argument to raise rates would be inflation expectations.

I think inflation expectations are broadly stable. They are higher than they were before the pandemic, but they're not drifting in the wrong direction. This is why I'm saying it is really more like an optional hike. But if you ask me personally, I'm more agreeing with, say, Lori Lorgan of the Dallas Fed, who says, well, you know, it's been running above inflation at some point we have to do something. We've been running above target. I find that a weird argument, but okay. So maybe just me.

But the inflation expectations, you know, one argument is that, you know, if you look at break-evens, coming out of the Treasury inflation, particularly securities market, or inflation swaps, which I know is your favorite. It looks like inflation expectations are well anchored, you know, consistent with where you'd want them to be, more or less. One argument is that the only reason why that's the case is because there's expectations the Fed is going to raise interest rates. Is that right? or, I mean, if there were no expectations for rate increases, would inflation expectations be where they are or would they be higher? I don't know the answer to that is the short question,

but I can talk you through the options here. So what we saw, generally speaking, if it's a supply side shock, and this is what we see in the inflation data, short-term inflation expectations, hike and long-term expectations don't move much. And that definitely happen. So oil price jumps in the second quarter, when the inflation expectation come up,

10-year doesn't really move that much. If there's a ceasefire, if there's any sort of negotiation, short-term inflation expectations come down. And that's really the argument for the Fed not to hike. I think that's correct. But then in 2021, we made the same argument. And if it goes on long enough, even if it's a supply-side shock,

you get to the point where even these long-term inflation expectations can become unanchored. I don't think that's the case right now, but it is something that the Fed needs to keep an eye on. That's what I'll say about that. Okay. So, yes. So to the degree that the Fed,

is controlling that markets currently think this is going to blow over. They don't think that inflation is going to spiral. And that implies that they think that the Fed is going to do its job. If they didn't think that, it wouldn't be the case. But other things play into this and specifically what happens in the Middle East. That's not the Fed's doing. Right, right. Okay, Matt, back to you. And I'm going to, Marissa and Chris, I'm coming your way. So stay tuned. But you're on the FMC. What would you have done here, Matt? You had to hike now. And I think. I think I put a little bit more emphasis on the independence signal than maybe Justin and Martin alluded to. I think just the conditions that got washed into this position of things he had said and done and seemed to have aligned himself with. I think this was important there. In a different world, whether it was in a new chair, you just take the same economic fundamentals. I would argue that this is an energy shock, tariff shock, not a whole lot. 25 base points not going to open up the straight of Hormuz any more than it is today. isn't today. So I think it's marginal there, but I do put a lot of emphasis in the signaling

effect of the Fed's independence and ability to make a tough call. Great. Yeah, got it. Got it. Okay, Marissa, you're up. Well, first, let me ask anything to add about the meeting and the interpretation of what it all means. And what would you have done if you were on the FMC? I think if I was Kevin Warsh, I would have done what he did. If I was another member, maybe I would have voted to stay. I think this was purely a signal. I get the sense that he doesn't really believe that this is going to do much or is totally necessary. I think it's more of a signal of independence for him.

And I don't think monetary policy is very restrictive right now. So I don't think it does a lot of harm to hike a quarter point. I do think it's just sort of a more of a symbolic hike than anything that actually is going to move markets here or change the trajectory of inflation. I mean, most of what we're seeing with inflation, maybe with the exception of the AI buildout, is really policy induced that could be unwound and could be undone pretty quickly. Okay. Okay. So you, so bottom line, you would have voted to hold tight or you would have not if I was Kevin Warsh. But if you were on the committee, you're not Kevin. You're not Kevin. I'm somebody else. You're somebody else. You would have voted against the rest of the committee and voted to hold tight. I say that, but maybe that's a difficult thing to do and maybe that actually doesn't, isn't a good look.

So in my heart of hearts, I don't think it was a necessary hike or is going to do anything effective. Right. That's, I guess that's my point. I think it's more symbolic. Yeah, it makes sense. Okay, Chris, you're up. Anything to add here on the interpretation of what happened and their decision and how would you have voted? Yeah, well, so based on my Italian roots, I certainly would have voted for a cut, but that's a little, I don't, a little dig there at Martin.

Oh, I see. Oh, I see. I see. German, Italian, yeah. You know, Northern European, Southern European. Yeah, yeah, got it. Never saw an interstate that wasn't low enough. Did anyone else get that, that one right over my head?

Didn't even? Martin got it. Martin got it. That's all I needed. Okay. But no, more seriously, I would have voted to hike. And I actually put a little bit more weight on the expectations argument. You're right that overall expectations are okay.

but the direction of travel over the last few weeks was concerning to me. So you did see the five-year break even, for example, getting pretty close to two and a half percent within a relatively short period of time. And then as right after the meeting, we have seen that those expectations have been coming back in, right? So around 2.3 percent today. So that was my concern. Otherwise, fundamentally, as Mercer puts it, or more objectively, more objectively, I'd say no, there was no need to do so. But I think going against the market at this point

could have had some negative or counterproductive impacts. Yeah, you know, it feels like a credibility hike to me, right? It's all about the credibility. Given all the pressures coming from the president and the Treasury Secretary and the Trump administration writ large, I think there was some concern angst at the Fed that they had to make sure that everyone knew they were independent and thus the increase. Certainly the unanimous vote.

I think that is clearly to establish credibility. They wanted to vote as a block to make it clear that there was no separation here. You're not going to pick off, you know, other members that were otherwise would have. have voted to hold. The other way of saying that is I suspect if we weren't in this situation where the president was putting a lot of pressure on the Fed, there would have been some folks have voted against a rate increase. I'm pretty confident in that. I, you know, if it's purely about, and also the other thing I reason why you have to hike is the markets expected fully, right? I mean, prediction markets, the futures markets, they were at,

what, 95% probability. So, I mean, if you didn't hike, then you have a lot of explaining to do. And I don't think anybody wanted, certainly Kevin Warsh, who doesn't want to explain, you know, just normal anything, anything that I can't see him wanting, for him doing that. So, so I, I think it was a really very much a credibility hike. I don't think the economics make any sense to raise rates, though. I don't see it. I mean, inflation is high and that's a problem, no doubt. but I don't see a one, two, three rate hikes having any impact on the inflation.

And you're also taking some risk here, right? Because the way, correct me if I'm wrong, but the way monetary policy gets inflation down is by weakening the economy, right? And the economy right now, it's okay, but it's growing at its potential. It's 2% GDP growth in recreating some jobs, but not a whole lot of jobs. And it's very focused, concentrated in one sector, the health care. sector. Wage growth is decelerating definitively.

Real wage growth is flat to down. That's not consistent with even being at full employment. So, you know, if way monetary policy gets inflation down is by weakening growth, you're talking about below potential growth, right? That, by definition, isn't it? Totalogical, almost. And if you're

going to be growing below potential, then you run the risk of things going kind of off the rails, right? You can start seeing layoffs and get into kind of a self-reinforcing negative cycle. So it's not like this. is without risk, you know, if, in fact, you're working to rate lower inflation in a definitive way. So, you know, and I think financial conditions, it's hard to argue that they're, that they're, that they're easy. I mean, you know, the bond yields are now up to 5%. The fixed mortgage rates over 7%.

Stock market's kind of gone sideways here. You know, it just doesn't feel like credit growth is okay. it's fine, but it doesn't feel like it's, you know, out of bounds in any significant way. So you look at all the things that the Fed looks at. I have a hard time coming to the conclusion, based on the economics alone, that you would raise interest rates. I, you know, I would have argued to keep them the same. But having said that, like you, all the rest of you, you know, I would have folded, you know, because how could you, again, going back to, you know, you want to show an United Front, right?

I mean, I think you want to make it very clear that you got Chair Warsh's back, you know, he's taking a, you know, seems like what seems like a bit of a political risk, you know, given the pressures from the executive branch and you want to show United Front and I'm all, I get that. You know, I'm there, you know, on that. Okay. Okay, we're going to come back to, oh, I want to go to the market reaction. Then I want to do the game and then I want to come back to the forecast, right? Because the next question immediately is, okay, you know, what's next? You know, where are we going to go from here? And that goes to our own forecast. But the market reaction, Chris, what was it? And, you know, where are things now a day

later, a day or two later? Yeah. So the immediate reaction in terms of U.S. equity stock markets was pretty violent. They fell kind of across the board. The Dow was down over 800 points at one point. The NASDAQ close to, or I'm sorry, the SMP 500 close to a 1% decline. So, you know, clear the hawkish statement, the no prospect for a rate cut anytime soon, certainly factored in. But then it rebounded pretty quickly, right? So it was, you know, kind of a short-lived type of reaction and maybe down a little bit from where it was before the press conference, but a fairly unchanged at this point is perhaps other things have settled in here, a lot more attention perhaps to oil prices

and the overall inflation outlook. That feeds into what happened to bond prices. So yields climbed on the two-year treasury, about close to four and three quarters, the 10-year, as I think most folks know, immediately didn't show much of a reaction. Now we're back up to about 5%. Kind of hovering around there.

So, again, I think some concerns about that higher terminal rate from the dot plot, inflationary concerns out there or supporting those levels. And then we can turn to the, I think we already touched on the outlook for future rate hikes. Those, you know, the probabilities certainly have risen over the last month.

I don't know that they changed all that much. They were already pretty high for additional rate hikes. And if I look out 12 months and Martin, of course, we'll caution that, you know, that's kind of pushing the envelope in terms of credibility. But the market seems to be

pricing in about three additional, two to three additional hikes over that time period. So given all that, it's a market that's digesting. And I guess is taking the Fed at its word that it is on the case, certainly much more hawkish tilt than in previous months. So the futures are saying what for the month of October, the meeting at the end of October? Are they saying, what's the probability. Last I check was close to 50-50. If I look out to December, it's an almost a 90% chance that we'll get at least one more hike. And then October's 50-50 and then it's 58% for October. Oh, 58% for October. Okay. And you're saying if I look out a year with all the caveats, it's pricing in two, maybe even three more. So probably closer to three. There are certainly

Closer to three. Some scenarios for four or more, right? Yeah. You do see some pricing around. But again, to Martin's point, it's a pretty thin market when you get that far out. But clearly the tilt is towards more, not fewer. I didn't see any. I don't think there's any probability on actual rate cut if you look out that far.

Right. So the FMC, the dot plot is saying one more rate hike. That's what they're saying before the end of the year. You're saying markets are saying, well, that's not the end of the. the story, there might be another one or two or three, even three after that. Correct. Okay. All right.

Got it. In overall markets kind of were unsettled in the immediate wake of the decision in the press conference, particularly the equity market, but you said two-year yields, which is kind of a window into expectations around that policy, all reacted. But they've all kind of settled back in here now on the Friday, two days after the meeting. Right. That's right. Got it.

That's right. Okay. All right. Martin any or Matt or Justin, Mr. Anything that else add on the market reaction? What about the president's reaction? I was going to say that. Okay, go ahead.

Yeah. Well, I mean, according to the president, he told Kevin Warsh that he could do whatever he wanted to do and he'd have his back. Right. Okay. He told him to vote. And also, like, hey, the rest of these political actors on the F1C are going to vote

to raise anyway, so you might as, your vote's not going to matter, so you might as well do it. I think that pushes back on your unified front. theory, whether you believe that or not, I tend to have a, you know, a sense to not believe that. But the idea that this is political independence or a unified front against pressure from the executive branch, it's not that easy, I think, in 2026. So I'm confused. What are you saying? That as much as a hike would have appeared like Warsh distancing himself from the president, later that day, you get true social posts that say, I told Kevin Warsh that it's okay to go and join the rest of the president. these FOMC members and raise rates because your one vote of 12 is not going to matter anyway.

Right. So I just think the stink of concerns about independence is not going away just given the kind of incessant communication coming from the White House. Oh, okay. Yeah. Yeah. It's not over is what you're saying. No, no, no. If anything, it's actually backsliding. I mean, it's just trying to undermine. He's undermining the appearance of independence, right, when he gets a chance to. It's kind of an unwinnable game, really. Which seems like a mistake because... By the president. I'm all certain that that conversation didn't happen.

I agree. I agree. But, you know, he has to make the case to voters because Kevin Warsh is his guy. He's asked to make the case to voters that his guy is still the right person for the job, that he did make the right choice, but that his hands were tied. And so he's going to signal that to, you know, especially since we're so close to the the midterm elections, you know, people who are upset about, you know, tightening up the economy through rate hikes and, you know, make, you know, increasing pressures on household budgets,

you know, maybe do higher borrowing costs or whatever, and you have to buy back some of that credibility among voters. And so, you know, that, but at the same time, you're also undermining, or further undermining the appearance of independence, which I, which obviously I think is a mistake. What if the Fed actually raises rates in October like markets expect? I mean, is the president going to say that again? Is that copy and paste? Huh? A week before the midterms?

Yeah. Maybe. Oh, he's simply reversing the errors of the Powell cuts from last year. There's a way to spin it. I'm sure there is. I'm sure there is. But you're saying, Matt, you're saying this credibility issue, it's, it's, it's, you know, it's not going away. It's going to be... It cannot go away. And Justin's point I take,

but it's like to say that it's his guy. I mean, being in the business of having the Fed Chair be your guy and be so closely tethered to you as a mistake. And then, you know, you layer on a bunch of inflationary policies at the same time. That's unwinnable. And yeah, it's not going to go away. And at least not for a couple years. And Jerome Powell was his guy too. Right. Right. Yeah, true. Until he wasn't. How that ended. Right. Right. Right.

very true. Okay, so let's play the anything else on the Fed up to this point. We're going to do the forecast after we do the game. But anything else, did I miss anything? Anything that you want to bring up? Okay. Okay, very good. Okay, let's play the stats game. We each prefer to stat. The rest of the group tries to figure it out, clues, questions, deductive reasoning. The best stat is one that's not so easy we get it, one that's not so hard we never get. And if it's apropos of the topic at hand, It doesn't have to be, but obviously the topic is the Fed, then all the better. And Marissa, you're up. You're tradition to go with you first, and so we're going with you first.

All right. 1.1 percent. That's retail sales X gasoline. Whoa. No. That's my staff. I mean, it may. That's my staff.

Yeah. Confident as you could get. That was nice. Yeah. All right. That is not what I have. in mind. So I've got to find a new stat.

So you're saying, Chris, retail sales were up strongly in the month of August, 1.1% was the- year before it. That's right. That's excluding gasoline, you said? Excluding gasoline. Because of the price effects, okay. Anything you want to say about that before we go back to Marissa and the 1.1? That's very strong.

Let's just move on to that statistic. It reversed July. The consumer's not dead. It's not just a gasoline effect. Right. Right. Right. It was a pretty good month for retail sales. Obviously, it's juiced by inflation, no doubt about it across the board.

And vehicle sales are pretty strong in the month, but nonetheless. And it is bounce back. A bit of payback, right. For July, yeah. Still feels like underlying real consumer spending, and obviously we'll see, but it feels still like it's still around 2%. But the consumers hanging in there. They're not given up. That's for sure. Right.

So back to you, Marissa. 1.1. We established that that's a percent. It is a percent, yes. And is it related to the Federal Reserve in some way? Not really, no. Oh, bummer. Is it... Housing?

Bummer. Housing related? No. It's an economic statistic that came out this past week? Yes. Oh. Is it house price growth? Nope.

Oh, it's not housing related. Sorry. Is it inflation related? No. Is it job? related? Yeah. Oh. Unemployment insurance claims? Uh, 1.1%. What else came on? Is it related to UI claims? Yes. Oh, it is. Oh, 1.1%. Like, uninsured or insured unemployment, right? Yes. Assured unemployment rate. Yeah. Right. Yes. Okay. Which is down. It fell over the week at

at its lowest point in a couple months. Jobless claims. Jobless claim. FAMS fell under 200,000 on the week. They're down to their lowest level since April. So back to this argument that, and I should say what the insured unemployment rate is and how that differs from the regular unemployment rate. It's the percentage of people receiving unemployment insurance over everybody that's covered by the UI system. So to the point that the Fed, I don't think, is worried about the labor market. I mean, maybe they should be a little bit more than they appear to be. But, you know, we're still not seeing any layoffs or pick up in layoffs, at least not if you look at the Joltz data or you look at the UI data.

You know, that brings us back to the Fed and Kevin Moore. She did make a point more than once in the press conference, and I did watch the press conference, that the economy is, I think he said, re-accelerating. It's re-accelerating. And, of course, the retail sales numbers, Chris just mentioned, and the UI claims numbers you just pointed to, would kind of fit in that narrative that the economy is re-accelerating. Do you guys think it is re-accelerating? Mercer, do you think it's re-accelerating fundamentally?

I mean, abstracting from the month-to-month or quarter-to-quarter, you know, kind of underlying growth is re-accelerating. Do you sense that? No, and I'm being wishy-washy because I don't think there's a lot of evidence that I've seen that there's some turning to a reacceleration. Yeah, I mean, yes, there was a good jobs report last month in a string of pretty lousy ones. So I don't make too much out of one single month to say that we're on this upward trajectory. I mean, I would wait and see before I proclaim that it's re-accelerating. It's stepped up to some higher level.

Got it. Anyone out, any of you guys would take Kevin Warsh's perspective and say the economy feels like it's re-accelerating? I think, Matt, I got that right, right? Did he use that word re-accelerating? I think he did. I think he's just strengthening. Strengthening. Strengthening.

Yeah, it doesn't acknowledge that it was ever in a weak spot, really. Right. Anybody push back on that? I mean, it's possible. I mean, I would push back on some of the doom saying that we're constantly about to fall off a cliff. And then, you know, you get, and I think that we're in the U.S. economies in better shape than I think some people, some significant portion of people would describe it as. No, it's not strong. And I wouldn't say that we're on some, you know, steady uptick.

We could get a jobs number in September. The way that the jobs reports have been whipsawing back and forth. this entire narrative could flip on its head in two weeks. Right. I think that's, and that, and that signals how tenuous it all is and how, you know, cautious, any kind of confidence should be about where we are. But I would put it as, you know, lukewarm, mediocre. But that's my general synopsis.

Yeah. I mean, I can't get my mind around how the economy could strengthen or reaccelerate fundamentally, you know, given that interest rates are higher, you know, fix mortgage rates, again, or over 7%. In wage growth, real wage growth or broadening out, real after-tax income growth,

that's flat at best and down. Saving rates are low. I mean, it doesn't feel like that's the kind of fodder for a strengthening in economic activity.

Just saying, you know, hard to see it. Okay, let's go on. Who has a good stat. Justin, do you have a good stat? Or do you want to...

I actually did think of a statistic. Okay, great. Okay, good. Yeah, it's relevant to the conversation, but it did not necessarily come out this week, but it did come out this month. So maybe... All right.

The number is 3.6. 3.6%? Yes, it's a percent. And it came out in the last month, you're saying? Yes. Is it inflation, as something related to inflation? No. Interest rates?

It's an interest rate. Oh, it is an interest rate. Chris, what is it? 3.6%. Martin, what is it 3.6%. I can give a hint. I've mentioned it several times, at least to the three, to Martin, Matt, and Mark. That would be the effective federal funds rate target.

federal fund is the effective federal funds rate the if the target is three and a half to three three quarters the effective rate probably three six not what i have in mind not what is this deficit is this deficit related kind of he said in oh oh i know what it is i know what it is is the average interest rate on all outstanding debt government that's exactly right yes yeah right okay explain that's a good that's actually a really good statistic go ahead sure yeah so typically i'm just saying That was really good, though. Okay. Glad to come in strong.

Yeah, so basically, typically when we talk about debt sustainability, there's often this formula that we use to assess the change in debt ratio. That's a function of the average interest rate on all outstanding debt, nominal GDP growth, and the primary deficit. And typically, when the average interest rate is less than, nominal GDP growth. So the economy is growing at a factor rate than our interest in our average interest is set at. That is said to be more sustainable. I mean, obviously with the federal government running persistent primary deficits, it's, you know, we do kind of have a constant

increase in the debt ratio. But actually, over the last year or two, we've kind of hovered around around 100% of GDP despite running, you know, primary deficits in the 3 to 4% of GDP range. And so that's important, despite the fact that we've had an increase in interest rates over the last, you know, four or so years because of repricing in the treasury markets. And that has pushed up that average interest rate on all outstanding debt. It's still not as high as growth in the nominal economy. So that's actually a good, good news for, for debt sustainability. Yeah, you know, I think one reason, correctly if I'm wrong, why the rate is as low as it is, is because the Treasury has been issuing a lot of short-term securities, right?

Yes, there's been a shift, especially as interest rates rose where the Treasury, to avoid locking in higher rates, longer term, has switched to focusing on T-bills. And it also helps with kind of liquidity in the market as well. Yeah, and now with the Fed raising short-term interest rate, that's going to get increasingly more difficult to do. Indeed. Right? So it feels like that interest rate is going to start pushing up higher here pretty quickly. And then once you get inflation back down, presumably that's where we're all headed, that means nominal GDP growth is going to slow. So this gap between R and G, R being the average interest rate on outstanding debt, and G being nominal growth, is going to narrow, you know, pretty significant.

Right. Yeah, got it. Okay. Well, why don't we move forward because we're already getting pretty long in the tooth here on the podcast and go to the forecast. And, you know, we've got some real hard work here to do because we haven't, you know, we did not, when we did our forecast back in early in the month, we decided, and this is before the CPI report and the inflation statistics, we decided not to include a, rate increase. It was a great debate. It was very close, but we decided not to. And now we have a rate increase. So that then begs the question, what about now? What do you think the forecast should be for the Fed going forward? And Martin, let me turn to you first, because you're all about the Fed forecast and monetary policy. What do you think we should do here in terms of the forecast? So this is a bit preliminary because I'm still waiting to see where bond markets ultimately settle. But over the past couple of days, I'm leaning towards one additional hike. Still not 100% sure about the timing.

The reason why I'm leaning that way is if this is a signal thing, right, if we're really committing to inflation expectations, you'd think that long-term yield should stabilize a little bit. And the tenure did fall a little bit yesterday. It did drop below 5%. it is now back up to 5%. So that's sort of an argument to see how are markets really going to settle around where the Fed is positioning itself.

It also feeds into what is discussed earlier this question. Our market's going to expect a hike if they do and the Fed doesn't talk them down from that, they probably have to hike. So currently that's pointing from my perspective that's pointing to one additional hike. I'm not 100% sure when.

I mean, generally speaking, it's looking more like markets are expecting that to come sooner rather than later which speaks for October, but a lot of things can happen between and let's have an inflation report, we get a jobs report that can change that again. So that's where I'm still a little bit uncertain, but I think one additional hike is warranted. Okay, so one more rate hike, not two, not three, but one more quarter point rate hike. And right now you're leaning towards an October, late October rate hike.

That's kind of your thing. Yeah, but that one narrowly. Narrowly. I would say a little bit, a little bit over 50%. And of course, we don't have to nail. We have two weeks before we look at it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And we get a jobs number and other inflation numbers, statistics between now and then.

As you say, see what happens in the bond market. Okay. Marissa, what about you? What do you think we should do with the forecast here? I'm with Martin. You are? Wait and see. Yeah. I think I'd lean toward one more hike before the end of the year. Not sure if that's October or December, but we have some weeks here to see what we're. what happens. Okay, but one more rate hike before the end of the year, quarter point. Yeah. Okay. Barring some very strange thing, right, that happens with. Assuming our forecast for everything out. Right. Yeah. Assuming our forecast. Yeah. For the war, for inflation, for growth, for everything. One more rate increase. Okay. I think it would be weird for them to just do one hike and nothing else right now.

Yeah, Matt, let me turn to you, because I know you've been, you looked into this. Has there ever been a case where it's been one and done by the Fed? In modern history, so we'll go from 1980 to today, different times that the Fed has started tightening or lifting the interest federal funds rate once. And that's in 1997. We got from Chair Greenspan a 25 basis point hike referred to as an insurance hike. And that was, you might recall, amid a huge, energetic, ambitious CAPX build out in the form of internet, fiber optic cables, everything that was going on at that time and the potential and promise of a lot of incoming strong productivity growth, real economic GDP growth really

strong. So you get this one. So I say all this and it's probably alluded to echoes today a lot. So the more I've read about that, I would say I've become more open to the idea that we might just be getting this one hike and then kind of a sit and wait. Initially, my first reaction was they're not going to do it in front of the midterms. And I think by December, that's when it would be. If it does happen, I would feel more confidence in December. But now, you know, you have this precedent in a sense, even if it's just once. And you also have some changes coming to the PC deflator.

Inflation's not going to just, you know, cosmetically look so bad. We're going to have close to 3% PC inflation. That's a lot better than 3.6, 3.7, 3.5, depending by the time you get to December. So I'm open to the idea that this is a one and done, certainly more than I was. 48 hours ago. Oh, really? Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, okay. So if you're putting the forecast to bed right now, you'd say, that's it. No more rate increases. Yeah, I would make that argument. Oh, interesting. Okay, very good. I'm surprised to hear that from you.

I expect it differently. Yeah, and if my forecast, your forecast is very different. Let me just put it that way. That's interesting. We should put that in the model. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Justin, where do you stand in all this? I'm happy that I am not responsible for setting the Fed outlook that I stick to fiscal policy. Yeah, I think my default is to lean towards market expectations. That said, so, well, so that being another 25 basis point height, that said, I don't think it needs to be in October. I don't know why you would need to run into another. another rate hike so quickly without kind of seeing how inflation expectations respond, without seeing how the job the job number comes in, and then just dealing with all the political blowback of doing your rate hike in October. So I think it'd be perfectly reasonable to raise

another 25 basis points in December. I think, you know, the timing would work out well, the, you know, you would avoid the political issue and you could, you would still signal. And all the white, I know this is not really Chairman Warsh's MO, but all the while, he could be deploying all the other governors out there to say, hey, yeah, we're kind of thinking about a hike, and then markets can kind of adjust their expectations for a December. I was just going to say they're going to have to do something like that

because the market, you know, if you look at futures, it's saying now over 50-50, and, you know, I can't get my mind around not trying to influence that if you don't want to raise rates. I mean, because then you're, You're boxed in. Like they were boxed in. I mean, I don't know if they were boxed in.

They had a unanimous decision, but pretty hard not to have raised rates given market expectations at the time of the meeting. So they're going to have to do something. They've got to figure out some way to communicate to markets if they're uncomfortable with what the markets are saying, no. Otherwise, they are boxed in, right? Probably, yeah. Yeah.

Chris, what about you? What do you think we should do with the forecast? Yeah. So if I had to make the. forecast today. I'm probably in Matt's camp. One and done for all the reasons he mentioned. But I feel fairly strong about October that they won't, that they won't hike, barring some really negative data given the election fallout. December is more on the table, certainly, so we can wait and see what the data show. But I think Matt has a compelling argument in terms of the Well, let me ask you this.

Suppose the PCE deflator, which I think we get what next week comes in core PCE consumer expenditure deflator, the measure they set inflation target on, comes in at 0.3% for the month. Not 0.2, but 0.3. And then we get a job number that's, say, 75K. And then we get a CPI number that comes in, and it's, again, 0.3. what do you think they would do at the October meeting, which is at the end of the month? Chris. That's a, yeah, yeah, that's a reasonable forecast, by the way.

Those are all reasons. They're not my fore. That's not my baseline. Yeah. But core PC at point three. Yeah. That's the biggest assumption made there, reasonable, but the biggest assumption, I think.

But, but what do you have it at now? What do you think it's going to be? Point two, two. So it wouldn't be much to be rounded up to point three. But I think everything else, 75K jobs. I mean, all that's, Three one hundred to the basis point, we're at point three, right? Yeah, I'm confident my forecast.

Okay. Okay. But you also have the CPI. Right, the CPI. September coming up. Yeah. Yeah, well, okay. Under that scenario, then I am more inclined to say, well, they'll probably

hike. Okay. Okay. So it does depend on the data to some degree. Certainly. Yeah. Well, okay. I don't think it's going to be one and done.

I mean, I do think this is a credibility. I think what they did this here is all about credibility or predominantly about credibility for the middle of the distribution of members. You know, everyone has their own motivation and thinking, but for the kind of the median or the middle of the distribution, I think they raised rates to establish their credibility.

And if that is correct, I think the odds are they go in October. They don't wait. In fact, it just reinforces things because they're going right before the election and saying, you know, I don't, I'm not, we don't care at all about politics. Right.

Yeah. Yeah. That would be my sense. And I, you know, oh, this is what I'm going to ask about when I kind of paused when we were talking about the president's reaction. You know, why would, why does Kevin Warsh even care what the president thinks at this point? Well, you know, what, what's the leverage here? I mean, nobody wants to be in a war with any, you know, any lawmaker, but why should he, you care. I mean, right? Martin, is there any reason that you can think of?

So like others speak to the politics. Institutionally, there is none. Institutionally, there are none. He's the chairman of the Fed he can't, it's not that he can do whatever he wants, but he's not bound to the president, right? He's bound to the institution. He's bound to the FMC in that process. It's like what the president says is ultimately does not have to listen to that. If he has personal reasons to that, I don't know. I'm not going to speak to that. That's Yeah, who knows. But, yeah, but institutionally, there's nothing that can be done here. I mean, I guess the president could make life difficult for, I guess, but I'm not even sure how you would do that.

Well, I mean, they tried it with Powell and didn't really work. And the Federal Reserve Act is pretty strong. The Supreme Court hasn't really supported the efforts there. I do think the pressure is going to be kept up on the Fed. But at the margin, you cannot force the Fed's arm. That's just institutionally not possible. Right, right. Okay. Fortunately, we have two more weeks, or maybe even three, before we have to put this thing to bed, to nail down our forecast.

But I think, bottom line, you know, we're talking on the margin here. Another quarter point. We're not talking about three or four any significant. This isn't the beginning of a series of rate increases. No one's saying that, right, on the team? Nobody's saying that. Okay. Right. Right. Okay. All right. I did want to mention if you're really interested in this topic about the Fed and interest rates and the bond market and what's going on, we didn't even get to that. But, you know, we did in this, in a webinar we have taped this week that's going to be released next week. Martin's on that call. Matt's on the call on that webinar. Justin's on that webinar. I'm the MC. And, you know, we go through a bunch of slides. And it's just a more formal kind of presentation. that kind of reiterates a lot of what we discussed here. But we do also talk about the bond market to the significant screen. I think the webinar is called Which Way for Interest Rates? That gives you a sense of it. So please feel free to participate in that. Guys, anything else before we call it a podcast?

Chris Marissa, you being my co-host, anything? No? I was going to plug the Washington, D.C. Outlook Conference, but I think it's sold out. It's sold out. We have the New York Conference. getting a lot of registrations for that. I think that's October 22nd, I think.

So folks are interested. You know, please feel free to register and we'll hope to see you in D.C. Is it next week? Yeah, I think, no, the week after next. Two weeks, I think, yeah. Yeah, and then most of us are going to be there, right? All of us are going to be there, right?

I believe in D.C. Martin's not going to be there. Martin's not. I bowed out. I've found the allegations with the potential. Yeah, you've got, yeah. But I'll be in New York. It could be in New York. Great. And you will be in New York, too, Martin, right?

I will be. Yeah, you'll be in New York with us. Okay, great. Good. Okay, hearing nothing else, I think it's time to call this a podcast. I hope you enjoyed this, dear listener. We will talk to you next week. Take care now.