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Barkin's refusal to prejudge September, delivered before Goolsbee's more dovish framing later the same day, leaves the committee's public messaging looking genuinely split three ways rather than a simple hawks versus doves story. His emphasis on 3.7% core PCE and the risk of embedding expectations keeps a September or October hike firmly on the table even as his tone stays far more measured than Hammack's insistence on acting immediately. With Warsh reportedly pulling back on forward guidance since taking the chair, every regional president's comments are being weighted more heavily by markets than usual, and futures pricing has already trimmed September hike odds toward 50% following Wednesday's CPI and Thursday's soft PPI. Friday's…

Hammack's Dayton remarks (headlines here earlier) sharpen the hawkish end of the FOMC's internal split, arguing explicitly that current policy is not restrictive and that businesses remain eager to borrow and invest, a dynamic she sees as adding to price pressure rather than easing it. Her framing that the labor market is stable enough to absorb tighter policy removes the usual counterargument for patience, and her explicit rejection of any tension in the dual mandate leaves little room for a middle path in her own thinking. Coming from a sitting FOMC voter who already dissented in July, these comments keep hike odds from falling too far even as broader market pricing has been drifting toward a steady hold.

--- Hammack is done waiting on…

Reddit shares jumped over 8.5% after hours Thursday after S&P Dow Jones Indices said the social media platform will join the S&P 500 before markets open on August 18, replacing AvalonBay Communities, which Equity Residential is acquiring.

Goolsbee's comments add a third data point to a week that has increasingly split the Fed along familiar lines, with his tariff and oil driven framing echoing Barkin's shocks should pass argument from Thursday rather than Hammack's insistence that policy needs to tighten now. The Chicago Fed president is not a voter this year, same as Barkin, so his comments carry more weight as a sentiment signal than as a lever on the September decision, but a third relatively patient voice in the same 24 hour window will likely reinforce the market's move toward pricing out a hike rather than pricing one in. Watch for whether any sitting voters echo Goolsbee's framing before the next inflation print, since that would be a more meaningful confirmation of…

The abrupt pull raises the obvious question of timing, given the meeting had been on the calendar since Monday and was widely framed as the SEC stepping in to fill the gap left by the Senate's failure to advance the CLARITY Act before recess. A genuine scheduling conflict is plausible given the short four day notice period the agency used to announce the meeting in the first place, but crypto markets that had been pricing in a pro industry regulatory signal this week will likely read any delay as a source of fresh uncertainty until a new date is confirmed. Watch for reaction in token prices tied to fundraising exemptions and for commentary from Chair Atkins or fellow commissioners clarifying whether this is a short administrative delay or…

The pullback marks a clean break from the six session rally that had carried both benchmarks higher into Wednesday, with a hefty build in US crude stocks doing more to move price than any single geopolitical headline. Prices did claw back from a much steeper intraday drop of over 3.5% after the Houthi attack on Aramco's Jazan refinery, a reminder that supply risk premium has not vanished even as demand concerns dominate the tape. Diesel cracks pushing to a record high alongside falling crude prices points to a market that is increasingly differentiating between crude oversupply and product side tightness. With Hormuz traffic estimates still wildly inconsistent between officials and shipping data, expect continued two way volatility until…

The calendar lists Reserve Bank of Australia Governor Bullock as speaking today. I have not seen this listed on the RBA website. 

This is an appearance in Parliament, before the committee on Economics. This is routine parliamentary scrutiny following the RBA's August monetary policy decision (cash rate hold at 4.35% earlier this week).

We had this yesterday:

• Recap: RBA's Kent: policy is restrictive and working, but risks still skew higher

• US July PPI 4.7% y/y vs 4.9% expected
• US initial claims for the current week 209K vs 202K estimate
• Fed's Barkin: Still an open question on whether the FOMC needs to hike rates
• Fed's Hammack: Need some restraint from mon pol to bring down inflation
• Fed's Barkin: It's hard to know whether policy is restrictive given standard errors in models
• US 30 year average mortgage rate averages 6.67% vs 6.69% last week.
• US treasury sells 30 year bonds at a high yield of 5.216%

Markets:

• WTI crude oil down $2.05 to $81.21
• US 10-year yields down 4.3 bps to 4.64%
• Gold down $58 to $4348
• S&P 500 up 0.65%, touches intraday record
• EUR leads, CHF lags

It was a dull day in FX but lively elsewhere. 

The oil market was a strange one and made even stranger beacuse oil companies…

ADNOC, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, is the UAE's state owned energy giant, spanning upstream production, gas, refining, petrochemicals and shipping through listed subsidiaries like ADNOC Gas and ADNOC Drilling. Its Murban crude is a key Gulf benchmark. Group CEO Sultan Al Jaber also serves as the UAE's Industry Minister.

Says 2 vessels attacked.

Yesterday:

• UAE-Iran asset transfer reported

The affirmation removes near term downgrade risk from the US sovereign story, but the accompanying commentary leans cautious rather than reassuring. Fitch's growth downgrade from 2.8% to 1.9% alongside a weakening labor market gives fixed income desks another data point supporting the softer Fed rate hike odds already in play this week. The agency's explicit flag on gridlock and shutdown risk, combined with a structural fiscal deterioration tied to entitlement spending, keeps the long end of the Treasury curve sensitive to any fresh political dysfunction out of Washington. None of this is new information for the market, given Fitch's 2023 downgrade to AA+ already priced in much of this fiscal narrative, so the reaction should be muted…

Diverging signals from Richmond and Cleveland Fed presidents this week underline how unsettled the September rate path remains, with markets currently pricing roughly a one third chance of a hike, down from about half earlier in the week after softer producer price data. Oil traders are increasingly decoupling price from the Hormuz conflict itself, with Brent and WTI both falling more than two percent even as vessel transits through the strait sit near three month lows, a signal that demand destruction and rising non Gulf supply are now doing more to set price than the headline geopolitical risk.

In FX, the yen's drift back toward 160 despite a coordinated US/ Japan Ministry of Finance intervention two weeks ago suggests that verbal and…

Bloomberg TV today spoke with Paula Seligson about software stocks and a recent report on how much risk there is in the sector. The “SaaSpocalypse” was a theme early in the year and some of those companies have had great bounces from the bottom but the problem isn't going away.

The kill app for AI is programming and the people who know how to use Codex and Claude Code at the moment are taking straight aim at software from every angle. Either they will succeed and disrupt the high-margin software industry or ... there isn't really an application for AI. There is no future where both sides win.

What's up for debate is what losing looks like and this data is concerning. It shows just how large a portion of private equity deals were in software…