Good morning, afternoon everybody. It is Steve Lutner with Agendafree TV. We are here to bring you live coverage of the Fed interest rates decision. It is widely expected the Fed will raise rates today. That is not something that President Trump wants, but it's not certain they will. So, we're going to have the decision at 2 PM Eastern time. We got our countdown clock going. We're going to have Diane Warren says, 'I hear going up 0.25%.' That's the consensus, but we'll have to see what happens. Tanks a lot says my couchy bet is no raise. We'll be checking the prediction markets in a little bit. And we're going to have at 2:30 p.m. after the decision comes out, we will have live the Fed chair Kevin Warsh press conference.
So, it's not just whether they raise rates, but what other signals might the Fed give today for what is to come this year, for example? There are two more votes the Fed has. There's one just before the election and then there's one in December. So, two more votes on changing rates this year with the Fed. Gloom man says oil up, rates up, inflation up. This is good, right? Well, one of the big concerns apparently the Fed has is so the idea is they'd be raising the rate, the interest rates to control inflation. But there's concerns about the elevated oil prices certainly as a result of what's going on in the Middle East. Dean Sparks thinks up a quarter point.
One of our viewers, RJB says, 'What time did they make the decision?' You know, at a certain point I can't do anything more to help you. At a certain point there's a certain amount of burden on the viewer to do a minimum of effort. Maybe we'll do a poll. We're going to do a poll about this. Wise night owl says it'll remain the same. Yes, it's possible that someone listening has audio only. Well, but then again, I mean, what can I say? I did say a couple minutes ago it was 2 p.m. Eastern time. Anyways, let's see. So, we have Hey, OGA thinks people should buy silver and gold. That's what OGA thinks.
So, we're going to give you some updates here. And we might talk about a couple other stories while we're waiting for the decision. We're going to be taking your comments. We'll do a poll on what you guys think is going to happen and we'll see. And we'll see if President Trump posts anything. President Trump has been saying for a long time, I want to say over a year now, since he came into office, maybe that the Fed should lower interest rates. Kevin Warsh took over. He was President Trump's choice to take over in May the chair, the as Fed chair, but he has said Kevin Warsh that they're going to keep the Fed target for inflation is 2% it's above that and he's going to they're going to the Fed is going to keep doing making a strong effort to keep inflation in check.
Mike A says too late Powell I think that's what President Trump used to call Jerome Powell. So, I really appreciate people being here. Let's get into this. And even have a video I can show you that might be interesting. Hold on a second. What is this here? Hold on. I'm gonna download this. Gonna show you some background here. Hey, thanks by the way to Thomas P419 who gave five people memberships. Thomas has given so many memberships lately. That's really nice of Thomas. Thank you, Thomas. You know what I didn't do? The one thing I didn't do before starting, I forgot to get my glass of water. So, in a minute or so, I'm going to have to get my glass of water. I forgot. I thought I had done everything. Thank you, Thomas P49. Please thank Thomas if you got a membership from Thomas. Also, thanks to our moderators. Beth Mythical is moderating over on YouTube. Thank you so much, Beth. And let's see, we got moderating now. Sarah and Plexus and Idaho Star on Twitch. Thank you. I appreciate all of our moderators.
Oops. I got to do one other thing here. One other more minor thing I forgot to do. Okay. We have moderating on Facebook K Lowry body is moderating. Thanks K. Thanks Dolly Clark. Dolly Clark for subscribing. Our viewer Capuletto Capulin says trailer homes in California are reaching the $300,000 price tag. So lowering interest rates really doesn't help. Well, they'd be raising just to be clear. They'd be raising interest rates. Capoto thinks that the interest rate adjustments might not fix affordability problems. If I can summarize what Capoto is saying. Thanks also Lori Durstein as well for your support. Thanks Lori. Linda Belgari Misha moderator on next X. Thank you. R. Walt says possible that no rate hike will occur. Certainly it's possible. I'm going to show you some background right now. Let's talk about a little background. We'll get on the same page here. And what I'm going to do first of all though, I'm going to have this headline on the screen and I'm going to take nine seconds and get my glass of water because I forgot my glass of water. Give me about 9 seconds and I'll be right back.
That might have been more like 11 seconds. Okay. Where is Steve? Says yellow screens. Oh. In case you're wondering, I should update you on the oil prices. Oil a bit lower today than it was yesterday although certainly elevated compared to the start of the war and much of the time during the war around a little 105.83 that's Brent crude. US crude WTI 102.61. Before the war started it was around 70, had gotten back down to about 70 during the war in July. Now it's 105.87. So we'll keep an eye on that. We'll probably talk about the rates too. 10-year bond key rate is just below 5%. This is the year-to-date chart there. It has been going up this year. Earlier this year it was in March it was below four. That's seen as something that the Fed and the Trump administration would be concerned about as well. We can talk more about that, but hold on a second here.
Fed's table is set for a rate hike, a first under Kevin Warsh, says Reuters. By the way, thanks also to Stannislav Babenko who says, 'Finance guy here. Probability possibility of no rate hike is higher than people's predictions. Current inflation is most supply side price pressure and geopolitical shock. Tightening money supply won't fix that.' That's what Stannislav thinks. Stannislav thinks there's a greater possibility of no hike than people are giving than generally people think. Hey, our viewer Harash thinks the 10-year yields are a little alarming.
Okay, let's get a little background here. So Reuters says Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh dislikes giving any guidance about the likely path of US interest rates, but elevated inflation, oil of more than $100 a barrel, and Kevin Warsh's own emphasis on the need to deliver price stability and to pay attention to signals from financial market pricing appear to leave little doubt about what's next. The US central bank will announce its policy decision at 2 pm Eastern time today following the end of a two-day meeting. Financial markets are betting heavily that Fed policy makers will lift their benchmark rate a quarter of a percentage point to a 3.75% to 4% range and signal further tightening ahead.
The decision point lands Kevin Warsh, who has run the Fed's rate setting committee since starting the job in May, in a tight place. President Donald Trump picked Warsh with the explicit expectation that he would cut interest rates, though so far has blamed his failure to do so on Warsh's political quote fed quote political fellow central bankers rather than Warsh himself, while also threatening to punish trade partners if rates aren't cut. And Reuters says a rate hike so soon before November elections in which Trump's Republican party is defending slim majorities in Congress could add to voters affordability concerns giving an edge to Democratic challengers squeezing Warsh from the other side. On Monday, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note hit 5% reflecting a range of factors, including expectations for oil prices to stay high and for the Fed to raise rates.
For Fed policy makers, Bank of America analysts wrote, 'Their choice is simple. Hike or risk a large bond spike. Trump won't like the choice but should understand risks of bond unanchoring and market implications.' So, I am not a finance expert by any means, but this 10-year Treasury note rate is which is determined people buy and sell treasury notes and those market trades determine what the rate of treasury notes is the interest rate. And so when the interest rate on those treasury notes, the 10-year goes up, that raises things like mortgage rates, auto loan rates, interest rates for business loans. So that has a lot of negative consequences economically when that 10-year Treasury note goes higher. But something that can send that interest rate higher is if investors think long-term there's going to be a bunch of inflation.
Basically, a treasury note is when somebody loans money to the US government and the US government says, 'We'll pay you back and we'll give you some interest.' If you think there's going to be high inflation for a while, you want to get more interest when you get your money back. If you give $1,000 to the federal government and then 10 years later they hand you back $1,000 that means no interest. That $1,000 is going to be worth a bunch less 10 years from now if there's been inflation. So, you know, if investors think that the federal government is not going to control inflation, that inflation is going to be big, that can be something that can make those rates go up. So, as I understand it, that's what's being said here when it said Bank of America analysts wrote, 'Fed choice is simple. Hike the interest rate to keep inflation down or risk a large bond spike. Trump won't like this choice, but should understand the risks of bond unanchoring and market implications.'
Okay. And then there's all another big thing today before I take some comments from you is not just what happens today. But not just what the choice the Fed makes today is about whether to raise interest rates today. It's how the Fed will signal what's coming. Now Kevin Warsh I think is known as somebody who doesn't like putting out too many signals and doesn't like the Fed putting out too many signals. But you know we'll have to listen to his press conference and what kind of data the Fed releases. Usually they release this dot plot where different members of the Fed I think it's the governing board post how for example how many inflation rate hikes or drops that they each think are going to happen in the coming months. So, it can be interesting to see what the Fed thinks is coming and what Kevin Warsh says. Is he going to give any kind of hints about does he think there's going to be further rate raises in the rest of the year? You can see here it says a decision to raise rates especially if accompanied by policymaker projections for another increase this year as some analysts now expect could also force Kevin Warsh into delivering at least a bit of a steer on the rate path and his own expectations for the economy unless he is comfortable with leaving the door wide open to further increases.
TD securities economist Oscar Munoz wrote, 'Warsh will need to walk a fine line in his remarks if he still aims to provide no forward guidance. If the Fed decides to tighten policy, he will certainly be asked about future rate hikes. It is fairly clear to us,' says this TD securities economist, that more rate tightening would be in the pipeline if the Fed goes the hiking route this month. It will be interesting to see how the chairman goes through that balancing act. Economists now expect the Fed to raise the policy rate today. All right, we'll talk about this more, but I want to get some comments from you guys.
Will we see a quarter point rate hike as is widely being predicted? Let's see. Cyber dude thinks the Fed controls nothing. Great white cat says he doesn't like signals, he just likes long hikes. Grant 74P thinks more rent increases are coming. Oh, if you're having an issue on YouTube, please refresh the stream. I gotta put that in the chat.
Low-level rebel says, 'Do you happen to know how long before inflation spike from the diesel price?' Yeah. So, I mean, diesel prices are high now, close to, if not record highs, and they've been going up recently. I don't know. I can't say how that factors in to different measures of inflation. Certainly, it's going to increase inflation in some sense if diesel prices keep going up, but I don't know enough about the different measures of inflation that are seen as important and what role diesel plays in those. It's a good question. So it'll contribute in some sense but I can't go beyond that with my background.
Let me also show you there is a video here that went along with this article from Reuters. A video about the interest rates. And I'd like to show it to you. I just downloaded it here. Let's see what this video says. We don't often get a video for this kind of story. It's kind of a... Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. Hopefully there's no music on the video. Let's try this. It's kind of a put up or shut up moment for him. The Fed needs to... There's music. I can't play the music. Sorry about that. I don't know why they put music on their videos. Oh, I think I can show you a transcript, though. Hold up. Let's do this. Here. I got it.
Okay, here's the transcript. This is what Howard Schneider, Federal Reserve correspondent, said. This is what he said about Warsh. I can just show you here. He says, 'It's kind of a put up or shut up moment for Kevin Warsh. The Fed meets this Tuesday and Wednesday, and it's going to be a very consequential two-day session for the new Fed chair, Kevin Warsh. It's his third meeting only, but this is one where markets are convinced to a high degree of certainty that the Fed will raise interest rates. Now, this is not what was expected when Kevin Warsh took over as Fed chair. President Trump has said he's clear. He said many times, Kevin wants to lower rates. I think we should have lower rates. If he were to go against the market expectation and not lower rates, people would start to wonder, is Kevin Warsh really serious about fighting inflation? Is the commitment really there? Is the credibility really there? Is he just holding trying to hold down borrowing costs for Donald Trump? There's a lot to tease out right now with Warsh with his relationship with Scott Bessent the Treasury Secretary for certain with how President Trump may react. You know the context of this remember is that for seven years eight years of Jerome Powell's tenure previous Fed chair he was getting berated regularly from President Trump about not cutting interest rates. Well, now along comes Kevin Warsh who's very close to President Trump, political connections, family connections. They're sort of they have a personal bond. And the expectation is well, he'll have some room, some running room to make kind of manage this committee and do what he wants. Well, is that going to last? There's this whole intervention by the Treasury Secretary in the bond market that has taken place now since the last Fed meeting. So to the extent there's tension, there's kind of tension about some of this. I wouldn't call it second order because it's very important, but sort of nondirectly meeting related stuff that's been going on over the past few weeks that kind of puts Kevin Warsh in a little bit of a peculiar circumstance between the bond market on one hand and Scott Bessent and Trump and his own committee. How Kevin Warsh triangulates all of this and balances it into a rate decision and a coherent message. That's what's going to be really what we're looking at to understand on Wednesday.' That is Howard Schneider, the Federal Reserve correspondent for Reuters.
And you can see it says, 'The US Central Bank will announce its policy decision at 2 p.m. today Eastern time following the end of a two-day meeting. Financial markets are betting heavily that Fed policy makers will lift their benchmark interest rate a quarter of a percentage point and signal further rate raises, further tightening ahead. A rate hike so soon before the November elections in which President Trump's Republican party is defending slim majorities in Congress could add to voters affordability concerns, giving an edge to Democratic challengers.' Okay, let's take some comments from you guys. We're going to do a poll soon. Give me one second here.
There is a timer. There's a timer right on the screen. Oh, I temporarily had the timer removed because I wanted you to see what I was reading there. Trying time says I wouldn't put it past Bessent to punch Warsh in the nose behind closed doors. Turbo says going to be funny to watch the interest rates jump while there's barely any domestic spending from the citizenry. Can't wait to watch the mega corpse. Mega corporations request more waivers and tax breaks to cover this. Benjamin Burns thinks if interest rates aren't... I think Benjamin says means if interest rates aren't raised. Benjamin said if interest rates aren't cut, bonds are going to blow up. But I think Benjamin might have meant if interest rates aren't raised bonds are going to blow up. That's what I think.
PL thinks fuel isn't expensive in the US yet for those that think it is get ready it's about to skyrocket even more. So remember with the Fed their two mandates what they're supposed to pursue are full employment and so keeping unemployment low and also keeping inflation low. Those are their two mandates. And I think their mandated inflation target is 2%. At least that's their goal at the moment. And with interest rates, if they want to keep inflation low, they will raise interest rates. That's their big tool. If they want to focus on increasing employment, spurring the economy, increasing employment, then they will lower interest rates. But if they lower interest rates, that tends to make inflation go up. And if they raise interest rates, that tends to curb the economic activity a bit. So there's this balance. But it's believed that today they're going to be worried enough about inflation that they're going to think we got to raise interest rates to keep inflation under control. Germaine Morgan thinks Warsh will lower rates. Now remember there's a vote. It's not just Kevin Warsh. I believe it's 12 people vote on this.
Just a little more background here. Economists now expect the policy rate to be raised by the Fed today. A fresh Reuters poll shows a week ago economists thought the opposite and for good reason. The influential Fed Governor Christopher Waller said in early September, 'Give disinflation a chance. I think that we have to wait.' And then I think New York Fed President said earlier this month, I think that we have to wait and see. But hotter than expected inflation readings last week may disappoint both Williams and Waller and add to the dismay of the three regional Fed bank presidents who already in July felt the Fed should be raising rates. US consumer price inflation excluding energy and food, a key measure of underlying inflation, rose 0.3% last month from the previous month, far more than is consistent with inflation at the Fed's 2% goal. Coupled with oil prices that have soared above $100 a barrel amid renewed hostilities in the Middle East, the latest data won't add to confidence that underlying inflation is moving toward 2% clearly and at sufficient speed. Says Reuters.
JP Morgan economist Michael Feroli says at the end of the day the Fed chair's repeated stern warnings on inflation intolerance risk institutional credibility absent some action to back it up. Kevin Warsh has repeatedly said as chair that the Fed is going to keep inflation down. JP Morgan economist Michael Feroli says at the end of the day Fed chair Warsh's repeated stern warnings on inflation intolerance risk institutional credibility absent some action to back it up. He projects the Fed will raise rates although he thinks it's a closer call than the 90% chance or so priced in by futures markets. I'm going to show you one of the markets in a second.
By the way, a quick thanks to Lidwine Elizabeth who says, 'Can someone explain what this is about?' Well, the Fed today is the central bank and they set base interest rates which have a major effect on the economy and the interest rate that the Fed sets will affect the interest rates that banks pay for savings and charge for loans. So, for example, when the Fed raises their benchmark interest rate, that means that you will tend to get higher interest rates at a bank if you save money, but you will also get charged more interest if you get loaned money. So, how will that affect things if interest rates go higher? Well, people will tend to save more and spend less and borrow less. So, it tends to reduce economic activity a bit but also reduces inflation. I know this is quite complex but again the how the Fed adjusts their interest rates tends to be reflected in interest rates throughout the economy. So when the Fed is raising rates, that tends to keep inflation lower but slows economic growth. When they lower rates, it tends to encourage economic growth but can cause a rise in inflation. So several times a year, the Fed meets and decides, do we raise or lower our big benchmark interest rate or keep it the same? And that's what's going on today. I hope I got the basics there correctly. I'm not a finance expert. Thank you, Lidwine Elizabeth.
Thank you, Lady Butterfly, for being a member as well. And again we have 54 minutes until that decision. Let me also thank Smelly for subscribing on Twitch. And also again our moderators, Idaho Star, I got that fire, Matthew Cohi3, Sarah and Flexernis over there on Twitch. Thanks for moderating. And Beth Mythical on YouTube and she is moderating over there. Thank you so much Beth Mythical. And Linda Larry Misha on X and on Facebook our moderators K Larry Body is there. Give me one second here.
By the way, you know, there's all kinds of other complex aspects of when the Fed raises or lowers their rate. For example, if the Fed raises rates and interest rates tends to rise, that can put a break on stock market growth because people will be able to get better interest rates on their savings. So, they might tend to put more money into say savings or bonds or savings accounts rather than put it into the stock market. So again, I am not in no way intending to give you a comprehensive expert analysis of how the Fed's interest rate decisions affect the economy. Hey, so I think what we should do is I think that we should take a poll and see what you guys think is going to happen today. But before we do that, I think we should look and see what one of the prediction markets says what is going to happen today because something we would talk about anyway. And oops, I got to do this real quick and get this on the screen for you. Once I can pull it up here, I'll show it to you. There. I can see it now. I can see it right in front of me right now. And then we'll ask you guys what you think is gonna happen. We'll do our own poll here. And hey, guess what? It's convenient because Kalshi is our sponsor today. A very convenient fitting sponsor because we can check what the Kalshi market says, the prediction market about the rate today about what's going to happen with the Fed decision. I got to get it up on the screen though. Let's see. It's right here. I got it.
Okay. By the way, Kalshi is an online prediction market. You can trade there on the outcome of future events. You can also go and look at Kalshi just to get a sense of what people are thinking, which we're doing right now. And you can see Fed decision in September. And you can see the green line hike 25 basically a quarter of a percentage point here. Yes, 88% no 13%. So Fed decision in September hike a quarter of a percent 87%. Fed maintains rate 13%. And it's an option but it's at less than 1% of hike greater than a quarter percent. And then these are all other options at less than 1%. Cut hike. Let's see. Cut 20. Cut a no cut a quarter point. Cut greater than a quarter point. Hike greater than a quarter point. But basically you can see right there 88% odds on Kalshi right now of quarter percent rate hike 13% odds on Fed maintains rate. And also in case you're wondering they also have a market for a number of rate hikes this year. So, as I just showed you, a lot of people, most people think that there's going to be a rate hike today. That would be one. But there's also a meeting in October, shortly before the election, and a meeting in December. So, right now, 53% say there'll be exactly two. 34% say they'll be exactly one. The New York Times said today they put it they said that some people think that the October meeting the Fed would not want to change rates in October because it might look like they're trying to influence the election. So anyways, and also remember President Trump has said that he thinks the war is going to end soon after the election. So maybe if you think that if you think that well they wouldn't raise it in October and that by December inflation will be lower because the war will be over. You might and you think it's going to go up today, you might think it's only going to be one for the rest of the year. I don't know. There's different arguments about this stuff. Anyways, that gives you a sense I want to hear what you think about this. That gives you a sense of what the general So there's a bit of a divide over exactly two increases this year. This year is the leading vote is the leading probability over there right now. I want to know what you think. So let's ask you guys. And I do want to say real quick, thanks to kalshi.com for being a sponsor. And you can see what else people are trading on. You can go to kalshi.com.
I want to get this right. I don't want to give you the wrong address here. If I give you the wrong one, that's bad. Then we can get to our poll. Oh, it might be I might have a typo in the show description. All right, I have to give this later. I have to check this out. I have a link, but I want to make sure the link works. I'm delaying us getting to our poll. It's not working for me. I don't know why. Okay, I'll deal with that after. All right. Let's do we're going to do a poll now. We're going to do a poll right now. But you can go to kalshi.com and see Kalshi. Let's do a poll. And the poll is going to be what will the Fed do today? Will they raise rates a quarter point, leave rates the same? We'll give you four options. We're going to give you four options in the chat. It's a little longer for me to write the poll. What will the Fed do today? I need four choices. Raise rates 0.25%. No change. Lower rates. Raise more than 0.25%. All right. I have just posted that in the YouTube chat. Now I am posting it on Twitch. What will the Fed do today? Raise rates 0.25%. No change. Lower rates. Raise rates more than 0.25%. It is now posted on Twitch. Oh, I see. And then finally, I got to post it on Facebook. People, I think, like when I put more choices in the polls. It just takes longer to type it in. Raise rates 0.25%. No change. Lower rates. Raise by more than 0.25%. Okay, I now officially have the poll posted and we're going to show you guys what you thought.
Hang on one second here. Oh, I'm sorry. And I have Well, let's do the poll first. Let's do the poll first. I'm going to pull it up here for you. The poll is here. Oh, we need the poll graphic. Let's do that first. We got to see you guys thinking about it and voting. You just voted. All right, here we go. I have it here. I'm putting it on the screen. What will... Well, that didn't work. Hold on. Just give me now. Give me one second. Give me just one second here. Was displaying wrong. So, now I have to get it displaying correctly. Apologies. Normally I get the poll up faster. Sorry. Whole thing. Now that's better. Now I can show it to you. All right. Here is what our viewers say there. 50% say what the consensus believes in the general financial public or the general investor public 50% thinks it's going to be 0.25% rate range 28% say no change 7% say lower rates and 15% say raise more than 25%. I mean, this isn't like 65. Two-thirds of you think it's going to raise, but I would say more of you than the general consensus think there's a chance of it lowering or no change. More of you think there's a chance of no change. More of you think there's a chance of lowering. The more of you think there's a chance of it being greater than 25%. That at least is on YouTube. Okay. Now, Facebook Facebook it's not that different. 54% on Facebook say raise rates a quarter percent. 15% say no change, 23% says lower rates. On Facebook, almost a quarter say lower rates and 8% say raise by more than 0.25%. And let me put Twitch on the screen right now. Here is what Twitch says. Haven't even looked at it yet. Let's see. Okay, Twitch. We have 65% on Twitch say raise rates a quarter of a percent. 28% say no change. 2% say lower rates, 5% say raise more than a quarter percent. So I will say on both as we can see there we have about 26 and 28% saying no change which is more than the market is saying as I told you for example Kalshi right now is I'm just pulling up the I think when we looked at it it was 88% raise rates by a quarter point And yeah, 13 it's 87% hike by a quarter point and 13% maintain rate. So you guys are more you're higher than the betting market on no change. All right. Well, we'll have to see what happens. One other quick thing I need to add is which I didn't add before really quick is Well, hold on a second. Here is you can see what else people are trading on. You can go to kalshi.com/agendafree and when you trade $25 you'll receive $25 plus on restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. All right. Now I'm going to check if we have any updates here. Thanks for voting in our poll by the way. I appreciate it. All right. Hold on a moment here now.
We're going to have the decision and we're going to have the press conference. Okay. Lori Potter says, 'Does a Fed rate increase the credit card rates?' I think it does. I'd have to double check though. I think it would tend to increase the credit card rates though. Our viewer Outstanding Oddities Music thinks there's more riding on the press conference than the rate decision. By the way, I'm looking right here. CNBC says that the Fed the federal funds rate, which is what the Fed sets, affects many other borrowing and savings rates. So when the Fed raises its rate, that can mean higher mortgage rates, car loan rates, credit card rates, for example. That's something that CNBC said in their article today. But you can earn more money on your savings deposits. Okay. 35 minutes.
Yeah, this is what our viewers were just talking, one of our viewers just said. See, it says here, Warsh's words may matter more than the anticipated Fed rate hike. I mean, at this point, it's widely anticipated they'll raise rates by 0.25%. So, if they do do that, that's not really a big surprise, and that doesn't necessarily tell you about what's going to come. Are there going to be more rate hikes this year? By the way, the two other meetings of the Fed Open Market Committee this year are they are October and December, but October what? October 27th and 28th. That's like a week before the election. Not even a week, I think, but roughly a week. And then December 8th and 9th. So, as I mentioned, there's one school of thought that says they're not going to do anything in October because it's like literally a week before the election. So, they're not going to want to be seen as trying to influence the election. I leave it up to you what to think. But if that's the case, then the question becomes, what will they do in December? Anyways though you can see right here Reuters says the Federal Reserve is expected today to hike interest rates for the first time since 2023. By the way, first time since 2023. A decision driven by stubbornly high inflation and a global rise in borrowing costs that will heighten the scrutiny of how US central bank chief Kevin Warsh describes this rate hike if that's what happens the first monetary policy change on his watch raising rates will fly in the face of what President Trump envisioned when he named Kevin Warsh to lead the Fed earlier this year saying he expected his appointee to lower rates. The president recently threatened to impose new import tariffs if the Fed does not reduce the cost of borrowing. But lifting the Fed's policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point to the 3.75 to 4% range is a step that has become almost inevitable, says Reuters. With inflation seemingly stuck above the central bank's 2% target, long-term global borrowing costs shifting higher and Warsh facing doubts about his willingness to go against Trump's demand.
The pressing question now is assuming there is a rate hike today, how does Kevin Warsh frame that policy decision? And do global bond investors see it as a credible response to inflation? The inflation that has been above target for more than 5 years and which has been moved up since the start of Trump's current term in the White House. Also, another thing is is it unanimous or not? What if they raise rates? What's the vote? This economist, Robert Sakin, told Reuters, 'If they hike and it is unanimous, that is a strong signal that they're strongly committed to controlling inflation.' Let's see. Inflation is it where is it, talk does it talk about the speech here, the press conference? Yeah, at 2 PM Eastern, we will get the Fed's rate its monetary policy statement along with updated quarterly economic projections, which I will show you that will include officials estimates of the appropriate year-end policy rate. So, officials will say how many how much rates will change the rest of the year. The group was evenly divided in the projections released in June with nine of 19 feeling rates would need to rise by at least a quarter percentage point by the end of 2026 and nine anticipating they could remain where they are. Kevin Warsh, who dislikes the dot plot chart of rate projections, did not submit one of his own. Actually, it doesn't really talk about the press conference here, but it is going to be followed that press conference. What signals he gives about the future about the coming months? AP's headline is Warsh likely to side with financial markets over Trump as Fed rate hike expected. Let's take some comments from you guys. Hang on a moment here.
Let's see here. Glastron says he's going to be mad. I think Glastron is talking about Trump. Midtown Mike thinks there will definitely be at least one dissenting vote, whatever the Fed decides. Oena says, 'Many people are awaiting the decision today.' Some of the viewers want to check what the gold price is doing today. All right, so gold today is up 1.27%. According to Trading View, Brent crude oil down a bit today, 105.62. Bitcoin is pretty much even for the day right now. The Dow is basically even for the day. NASDAQ up a bit, three-quarters of a point. S&P up a little bit. Kills my skills says, 'Expect a Truth Social post calling Kevin Warsh a traitor.' William Harley says, 'Of course the Fed will raise rates now as timing to hurt Republicans. Most are left-leaning Fed members.' That's what William Harley thinks. So, William Harley thinks that a lot of the Fed members aren't voting about what they think what impact this is going to have on the economy at all. They just are voting because they're left-leaning and they're totally politicizing the vote. That's what William thinks. All right, give me a moment here. I am pulling up. What I always need to do here is also figure out I got to be ready here for when the Fed releases their
Documents. I think that is it. Okay, I'm ready. I have the website up where they'll be releasing their documents, their statements at 2:00 PM Eastern time in 28 minutes. I haven't even checked if we have other big breaking news. Although people usually yell at me about it in the chat and I haven't seen it if something happened in the last say 20 minutes.
You can see here AP says barely four months into the job, Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh is stuck between two strong and opposing forces: financial markets that anticipate the central bank will raise interest rates and President Trump who wants the Fed to cut them or leave them unchanged. Economists expect on Wednesday Warsh and his fellow policy makers will side with the markets. So, you might say, well, what's the big deal? What's the problem? If the financial markets are expecting the Fed to raise interest rates and then they just don't raise it, what's the big deal? Why do the financial markets care? Well, one response to that would be is that the financial markets think there's a risk of inflation growing in the United States. And they think that maybe the federal government isn't that serious about controlling inflation. They're not so sure. And then they, you know, they especially worry because they see, for example, the oil prices going up. And those inflation expectations have been a contributing factor to the very important 10-year rates on the 10-year, the government 10-year bond yield rising. They've gotten up to almost 5%. And this rate is important because if this rate goes up, that tends to raise mortgage rates. It raises the cost of auto loans. It raises the cost of borrowing for businesses. So that can have a lot of negative consequences.
So suppose, given that the financial community is expecting a rate increase. Remember the Fed has basically two jobs. There are two things they're supposed to do: keep inflation, supposed to keep it at 2%. It's above 2% now. And they're supposed to go for full employment. Minimize unemployment basically, get a certain number of people working. I don't think full employment means total employment, but basically they want to keep the unemployment rate low, keep people working, but they also want to keep inflation down. And so whether they're raising or lowering interest rates or keeping them the same depends on what they think about what's going on with inflation. What's going on with the labor market? Are too many people unemployed? Is the inflation rate too high? So, if you think the inflation rate is too high and you're the Fed, you're going to raise interest rates because that'll tend to lower inflation.
So, getting back to my original question, why does it matter to the financial markets if the Fed comes out today and says, 'Well, we're not going to make any change. We're not raising rates.' Well, the financial markets might think like, whoa, they've been saying they're serious about keeping inflation down, but they're not raising rates. They're not doing the big thing that they need to do to keep inflation down. So, if the financial markets see that today, they might think, you know what, I don't think this government is going to control inflation. I think inflation's going to go up. And if they think that, you know what's going to happen? What might happen is bond rates up. The 10-year bond rate, which has already gone up a bunch this year, I'm guessing I'm going to assume if the Fed doesn't raise interest rates today, this will go higher. And if this goes higher, what does that do? That pushes mortgage rates higher, auto loans higher, business loans higher, interest rates higher, makes it more costly to borrow money for consumers and businesses and the federal government. So that is why I know it's confusing when you see here it says Kevin Warsh is stuck between two strong and opposing forces: financial markets that anticipate they will raise rates and President Trump who wants them to lower rates. So financial markets, if they don't see that rate increase, they might think, they're probably going to think, 'Wow, we're going to have a lot more inflation,' and that could cause that 10-year rate to go up, for example. So I'm just trying to give a little background here. I'm not a financial expert.
Warsh, economists say, has largely boxed himself into a rate hike after delivering a high-profile speech last month, warning that inflation remains far too above the Fed's 2% target, and might require higher borrowing costs, higher interest rates to bring inflation down. A report last week showing inflation is still stubbornly high largely sealed investors' expectations. And AP says Warsh has faced this dilemma before. Soon after becoming chair in March, he delivered tough rhetoric on inflation. But in late July, the Fed left its key rate unchanged after Kevin Warsh provided little explanation for his decision. At a press conference, investors pushed up longer-term interest rates, accelerating a process that is still ongoing. This week, the rate on the key 10-year Treasury bond reached 5% for the first time in three years. Mortgage rates, which closely follow the 10-year Treasury, have also risen. If the Fed, this is just what I was saying, if the Fed does not hike its key rate today, it risks a replay of what happened in late July. Economists say when investors expect inflation to stay high, they demand higher interest rates on government and corporate bonds to compensate.
Okay, so what is going to happen? Our viewer Calm Seville says the Fed will surely raise rates today. Midtown Mike thinks if they don't raise rates, the optics will make investors worry. Devil in Disguise thinks a president should never talk about this. You mean openly try to influence the Fed or say what the Fed should or shouldn't do? Billing Tano thinks if rates stay the same, gold will spike. You think because Billing Tano, you're thinking is that if rates stay the same, then investors will be concerned that inflation is going to go up and they will want to flee to an asset, not the dollar, that they think will hold its value better, such as you would say, gold. I think that's what you're saying.
I mean, remember that markets have an expectation of what's going to happen today. So, if the Fed comes out and just the Fed saying we raise rates by a quarter point, if that's what they say, that's probably not going to move markets much because that's what the markets are thinking. So, in terms of what's going to move markets, it's going to be, well, if they don't do that, that would move markets, but also things like what is the vote on the Fed. Is it unanimous or not? What the Fed, the voting members are going to, I think it's the governing board. I think it's 19 different people. I think 12 of them vote today. But I think if I have this right, there's 19 different people, but I don't, I think Kevin Warsh is one and he doesn't, he doesn't give his. Anyways, roughly close to 20 people will give their projections of how many rates they would anticipate for the rest of the year. These kind of things can move markets because the markets will be looking at signs of not just what's happening today, but what's going to happen the rest of the year.
Hold on a second here. Martin Apollo thinks stocks are squeezing. Billing Tano says gold is an inflation hedge. Elon Lavine thinks keeping rates the same would be a big surprise and yields would come down because expectation was quarter increase. You think yields would come down? The thinking would be that yields would go up because as again just explaining it again here, if the Fed doesn't hike its key rate Wednesday, it risks a replay of what happened in late July. When investors expect inflation to stay high, which they would if the Fed doesn't raise rates, they will demand higher interest rates on government and corporate bonds to compensate, which would mean yields would go up.
Morgan Freeman says, 'Three members wanted a rate hike last meeting.' I Love Congress says, 'If rates go up a quarter point, markets will stay the same because that's the plan.' The Substance says a half quarter point hike is baked in. This will not, that alone will not move votes for the midterms.
By the way, give me a moment here. We did a poll already about what people thought. We could do another really quick short poll. Real a flash poll. We could do another one. By the way, a quick thanks to Clankers Slop. Clankers gave 20 people memberships on YouTube. That's really nice of Clanker Slop. Please thank Clankers if you got a membership. Thanks also Dr. Snuffalopagus. It's Dr. Snuffalofocus who says GameStop is going to run after the decision in the coming days. Watch. I know nothing about that. That's what Dr. Snuffalofocus says. Thanks, Dr. Snuffleus. Thank you. Also, the good Kilo and Billy B35 and Mr. Shovel from Denmark. Thanks for your support. Also, Michael McIsaac who shouted out the mods. Thanks for your support, Michael McIsaac. I appreciate that. But also remember Lady Butterfly and also let's see. All right, we have 15 minutes we're going to do because I notice, you know, people come in and out of the chat. Quick flash poll with only two options. What will the Fed do? Raise rates or no change? Raise rates or no change? Flash poll. We're giving you another chance to vote. And I know some people weren't here for the poll before. This will be a quick one for me to put in the chat. It's already up on YouTube.
What will Fed do? Raise rates? No change. All right. It is now posted on Twitch and I just have to post it on Facebook. Oh, I can do that right now. Okay, here it is. Oh, here you are voting. You're reading fast and you're like, I got to vote on this fast because it's a flash poll. We don't have much time. You're thinking too long. It's a flash poll. Come on. You got to vote faster. All right. So 14 minutes left. Let's see in our flash poll what people said. I gave you two options this time. I said our viewer Brad says not raising rates would solidify this administration as total buffoonery. Wow. On YouTube. Here is the result of our flash poll on YouTube. It is 68% say yes, they will raise rates. 32% say no. A bit more pessimistic than the prediction markets today. At least in YouTube right now, 68% say raise rates, 32% say no change. On Facebook, it's early votes just coming in on Facebook. Facebook is 50/50 right now. I think that's going to change in a little bit though. Let's go over to Twitch. On Twitch, this is a flash poll. It's not going to be open that long. On Twitch, it is 75% say raise rates, 25% say no change. Again, a bit more support among our viewership for the no change than I've seen generally out there. Not majority support, but a bit more than I've seen. That would be a surprise. We'll have to see.
Just 12 minutes and 40 seconds left. We are going to have live Kevin Warsh's press conference after. Saying no change is pessimistic about the possibility of a rate increase. That doesn't mean you're a pessimistic person about the country. It's literally just saying you're pessimistic about a possibility of a rate increase. Clay says a hike is already priced into the market. All right. So, should I leave the poll up for a second? I'll leave it up for a minute. I think people like being able to vote on this right before it happens. Let me just check on Facebook what the poll is over there. I think it's weird. I feel like we're not, I don't know if it's working on Facebook right now. It could be having an issue. All right. Let me do one other thing here. One other thing. We're going to leave it up for another minute. I said it was going to be a flash poll because we were going to show it quickly, but normally on flash polls, I don't give you as much time to vote. But I think people want to have a little chance to vote. So, I'll leave it up for another minute or two. Let me see if I have any updates to give you on my end. Yeah, I think on Facebook there may have been an issue with the poll. All right, so I'm going to wrap up the poll in a minute. Again, the Fed is expected to raise rates to bring inflation under control. When we hear from Kevin Warsh and also when you read the Fed statement, they're going to talk about controlling inflation and also keeping the labor market at full employment, if I have this right, because those are the two mandates of the Fed. Those are the two things they're supposed to do.
I think it's maximum sustainable employment and price stability. Here. I can show you this. Look, I'm going to show you right now. Oopsie. What economic goals does the Federal Reserve seek to achieve through its monetary policy? Congress has assigned the Fed to conduct the nation's monetary policy to support the goals of maximum employment. I said full employment. Well, I think that's basically the same. And stable prices. Those two goals are often referred to as the Fed's dual mandate. Maximum employment which I was calling full employment is the highest level of employment or lowest level of unemployment that the economy can sustain in a context of price stability. Prices are considered stable when consumers and businesses do not have to worry about costs significantly rising or falling when making plans or when borrowing or lending for long periods. The Federal Open Market Committee judges that an inflation rate of 2% over the longer run as measured by the annual change of price index for personal consumption expenditures is most consistent with the Fed's price stability mandate. So again, the two things the Fed is trying to do with their interest rate decisions is to keep employment at a maximum sustainable level and to keep inflation at 2%. So you'll hear them talk in their statement and when Kevin Warsh talks, he'll constantly refer to how what they're doing is affecting inflation and also the labor market, unemployment and employment. All right. I have to end the poll now because we're only eight minutes away. So the results of our poll were on YouTube. It was 67%, two-thirds said raise rates but one-third said no change. Wow. And on Twitch not that far off 72% said raise rates 28% said no change. Thanks for voting in our poll. And looks like things might have been a little funky over on Facebook with the poll.
All right, we have seven and a half minutes until the Fed comes out with their decision. I will show you the decision when it comes out. I'll show you their statement. We'll look at the dot plot and we will have Kevin Warsh's words for you. And I'm also checking here to see if I see any updates on the headlines here. So, give me a quick second. Let me just see if I see any updated reports. We're taking your comments on the air. Okay, the headline on Bloomberg right now is Fed expected to hike rates. If you are wondering just to get you a little perspective here. So, if you want to know as we'll compare this to what happens after the decision. Right now, the 10-year yield is down 1% today. It's still close to 5%, but it's at 4.949. Brent crude is at 105.54. The Dow is basically even right now. NASDAQ is up roughly 6%. This is all from Trading View. And S&P is up 2%. So we'll keep an eye on how that changes when this decision happens. Gold is at 4349.52, up 1.3%.
We have 5 minutes and 32 seconds until the Fed announces their decision. I am looking at the Fed page right now. I will be refreshing it and I will go over to that page like a minute before and we will keep refreshing the page until they come out with things and hopefully I can get it up on the screen for you as fast as possible. Yes. And as Babate says, rate announcement at 2 PM, press conference at 2:30. We will have the press conference live. Kinetic Pause says that the rate decision is coming. DJDA says, 'Stocks about to be discounted.' No, Trading View is not. I would have to tell you if Trading View was a sponsor. One of the viewers says, 'Is Trading View an undisclosed sponsor?' No, because I don't do undisclosed sponsors. You guys think I lie to you about who the sponsors are? Then you haven't been watching the channel, but I do appreciate them letting me show you their site and I want to give them a shout out.
Okay, let's see here. Do we have any updates? We have four minutes and 10 seconds. Oh my gosh. I have a, if you have any, I have a couple minutes to read some more comments in the chat. One of the viewers said, 'I am so excited. Fed fed Fed.' Jay Gum thinks that the markets are pricing in a dovish hike. So, you think Jay Gum thinks that the markets think there'll be a raise, but they don't think that the Fed will hint at another raise this year. Is that what you think? Kinetic Pause says excitement intensifies. All right, we have three minutes 15 seconds left. I am going to the Fed page. This is, unless I have it wrong, I believe this is the Fed page. This is it right here. So, you can see it says September 15 to 16. And right here, it's going to pop up the statement. The statement if I have this right. So I know last time the statement, last time this is not the current one. Last time that was last statement. So we should get another statement like that. Last time it just popped up there. 2 minutes and 37 seconds. Well, I'm not going to keep, I'm not going to refresh every two seconds now because it's not going to pop up yet. Well, I probably should refresh every once in a while. Maybe it'll be early. We are literally looking at the Fed website. But remember, it's not just what they do. It's what are their projections going to be. I got to find the, is the dot, I don't know if the dot plot is on this page, but I'm going to stay on this page for now. Let's see. 157, 147, I'm refreshing. We have been reduced to refreshing. We are now refreshing the Fed website. Oh, did I not, I didn't delete the poll. 66% was the poll. Yes on YouTube for raising rates. I just ended the poll on YouTube. Sorry, I forgot to end the poll. All right, we got to refresh. 120, 112. You can see I'm refreshing it. Maybe it'll be early. It usually comes right when it happens. I'm going to refresh it at one minute. One minute. If you were hoping for early, you did not get it. Well, not yet. 50 seconds. Stacy says, 'Hurry up.' 45 seconds. 40 seconds. 35 seconds. Let's go, Fed, says Justin. 30 seconds. They're not giving us this early. 25 seconds. 20 seconds. I'm going to just start refreshing every two seconds. I'm just refreshing every two seconds. I'm refreshing every two seconds. 12 seconds. 10 seconds. 8, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Where is it? It's not there yet. There. It's officially late. It's late. I'm counting. The clock is counting up. It's not up there. I don't see it yet. I'm refreshing. The clock is counting up because it's late. Guys, what's happening? It's still not there. There it is. Here it is.
It says 12-0 vote to raise the rate. Breaking news. 12-0 vote. They raised the rate by a 12-0 vote, one quarter percentage point from 3 and 3/4 to 4%. In support of the Federal Reserve's dual mandate, unanimous vote. The Fed is continuing its policy, the committee is continuing its policy of maintaining ample reserves in the banking system. They say economic activity is at a solid pace while uncertainty remains elevated owing in part to geopolitical developments. Domestic spending has been resilient. Productivity growth is strong and capital investment is robust. Job gains have kept pace with the workforce and the unemployment rate has changed little. They seem optimistic about the economy. Inflation remains elevated. Today's policy action will support a timely return to the committee's 2% goal. The committee will deliver price stability. Unanimous. Hold on a second. I got to post this. I got to post this really quick. And we're going to also check for the dot plot, too. But again, and I got to change the headline. Oh my gosh. Unanimous vote. There it is. I got to change the headline. I got to get this posted. And I got to take some comments from you. Wow. There it is. Fed votes unanimously to raise rates by a quarter point. Okay. All right. And I got to get the headline now. I got to look for the dot plot. Hold on. But I got to fix my headline because if I don't fix the headline. Okay. So, Fed votes 12-0 to raise key interest rate by 0.25%. 12-0 vote. All right, hold on a second. Let's go look at the dot plot now. I need the dot plot. Where is the dot plot? Projection materials. Here it is. Projection materials. Now, we need change in real. These are projections. Okay, this is it right here. This is it right here. So, currently we are at between, they raised the rate and it's now currently 3 and 3/4 to 4. So, number of participants with projected midpoint of target range or range level. Okay. Currently, it's 3.875. That's the current midpoint is 3.875. 12 of the 18 votes said it's going to go up to 4.125. So 12 of the 18 are projecting that at the end of the year there will be one additional quarter point rise. Four of the 18 are projecting that there will be a half-point rise and two of the 18 are projecting no further rise for the rest of the year. And because again the current rate is 3 and 3/4 to 4. So the current midpoint is 3.875. Only two of the 18 say it'll stay there for 2026. 12 say one more quarter point bump and four say a half point bump. And then in terms of 2027, you know, no one's, it doesn't look like anybody's above 4.375 for 2027. And some of them are actually down here for 2027. So, and where is the, do we have the dot plot anyways? And they have inflation projections but that's again that is that interest rate projection right there. I want to go back to that again. FOMC participants assessments of appropriate monetary policy midpoint of target range of target level for the federal funds rate. So they voted 12-0 to raise the interest rate by a quarter point and 16 of the 18 project one more quarter point. No, 16 of the 18 project another raise this year. 12 of those 18 think it'll be a quarter point. Four of the 18 think it'll be a half point.
Okay. Give me a moment. Let's check stocks. And I also want to check, I should have the video soon from, we're going to have that press conference. Oh, I got to put the, I got to change the countdown clock. Wait a second. Warsh press conference in, hold on. Fed Warsh press conference in, and I'm changing it so you can have the clock on the screen. Warsh press conference in 23 minutes. We're going to have that for you now. Let me see stock, I got to take some comments from you guys. Stock market. Okay. Hold on. Bitcoin. Bitcoin went up a bit. Bitcoin went up a bit. It's up. It went up from about what? It's hard to say. It's kind of going back and down, but clearly up a bit. Bitcoin. It's up 71% to the day. It was around mid-75,000. Now it's 76,150. Says Trading View. And then the Dow, I'm not seeing much of a difference there. NASDAQ looks like it went up a little bit. Maybe that's a one-day chart. S&P looks like it's up a little bit than before the release. I mean, this is a, again, this is a one-day chart here, right? That's a one-day chart. Hang on a moment here. And okay, Fed hikes rates, sees more tightening in search of timelier drop in inflation, says Reuters. The Federal Reserve raised interest rates on Wednesday and flagged further increases in borrowing costs in coming months with new US central bank chief Kevin Warsh joining a unanimous decision 12-0 that effectively acknowledges the Trump administration's inability to so far to control inflation. Reuters said, we just said this, new policy projections showed 16 of the 18 policy makers anticipate at least one more quarter point hike by the end of this year. Four of the 18 think there will be two more quarter point hikes and only two of the 18 see rates remaining stable from here for the rest of the year. Warsh apparently again did not submit a rate projection. Wow. The, okay, let me just make sure I might have video from the press conference room already. So, let me check that. I want to take some comments from you guys. And we're going to hear from Kevin Warsh live in 20 minutes. Let's see. Do I have, wait a minute. One moment. One moment. Here I have, maybe I got the Fed room. Oh my gosh. I got the Fed press conference room. It's incredible. We're going to put it on the screen for you right now. Give me a moment. I am putting it up on the screen so we can discuss this while looking at the Fed and wait for Kevin Warsh. Oh my gosh. It's incredible. There it is. There's the room. He's going to be there.
All right. There we are. Oops. Okay, we're good. We are waiting for Kevin Warsh. And give me one quick second here. I want to take some comments from you guys. Hang on, hang on, hang on. I think this is at the Fed. I would assume it's at the Fed. Yes, it's at the Federal Reserve. So, that is the Fed we're looking at. Wow. Wow, guys. 12-0 rates up. Anything from President Trump yet? I can't imagine President Trump is going to be happy about this. I also want to do this. Fed raises interest rates by 25%, projects further rise in 2026. Is that fair to say? I mean 16 of the 18 of them said that they thought that was appropriate. Yeah. I mean the Reuters headline says sees more tightening. So given that 16 of the 18 of them projected a further rise, I think it's not inaccurate to say signals further rise. Let's see here. One of our viewers claimed gold was dropping. Oh, so here's what happened with gold. That's Trading View there. So gold was at about 4360 or 70 before the announcement and now it's about 4310. I guess because maybe the thinking is that people are thinking, well, if they're going to be strong about raising interest rates and cutting inflation, then I might not need gold as a hedge as much. Maybe that's the thinking. I don't know. I don't want to put words in people's mouths. Just looking at stocks, by the way. Yeah. I mean, I'm not seeing a huge jump. I'm just looking. This is the Dow from Trading View. I mean, you can see this is a one-day chart, so you're not really seeing a big jump either way there. NASDAQ there. It's, I mean it's not much different than it was several hours ago. S&P 500 there was some jumpiness, but hasn't been a huge change to my very amateur-ish eye. The Whiz says no surprise, no jump. Kinetic Pause says rate increase was expected. Well, it's not, but it's again it's not just the rate increase. It's the fact that 16 of 18 of them are projecting a further increase this year. But maybe that was expected too. Better You Than Me says it's priced in the market. They were expecting this. We have 15 minutes until Kevin Warsh speaks. We are waiting for Kevin Warsh coming up speaking and he will be answering questions about this. Let me again mention what that Fed statement was. Remember their dual mandate is to keep inflation at 2% but also to keep employment at a sustainable maximum sustainable level. Now if I can quickly put this on the screen for you. There is the Fed statement. It said the Federal Open Market Committee approved the following comment for release by a 12-0 vote. The committee decided to raise the target rate for the federal funds rate by a quarter percentage point to 3 and 3/4 to 4% in support of their dual mandate which I was just saying. The committee is continuing its policy of maintaining ample reserves in the banking system. Economic activity. So here they're talking about economic activity and when they're talking about economic activity and employment being good, they're saying we're not, remember they have two mandates, maximum employment and keeping inflation down. So if they're saying that things are pretty cool with employment, that shows that they're more worried about the other mandate at this point, inflation. What's happening with that? So they said economic activity is expanding at a solid pace while uncertainty remains elevated owing in part to geopolitical developments. Domestic spending has been resilient, productivity growth is strong and capital investment is robust. Job gains have kept pace with the workforce and the unemployment rate has changed little. That's like positive non-negative news about employment. Whereas they also say inflation remains elevated. Today's policy action will support a timelier return to the committee's 2% inflation goal. The committee will deliver price stability. They're saying we will deliver low inflation. So you will hear in this press conference him talking about those dual mandates. Maximum employment and keeping inflation low. And clearly at this point, they think what they really need to focus on is the inflation. That's why they're raising interest rates. Midtown Mike says they better get Trump in line if they want that. Tik Tok Roast thinks Trump is going to cry. Only 12 minutes until we hear from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. Also, quick shout out to our moderators. Our moderators are awesome. We have Ruth moderating. Thank you, Ruth. I really appreciate it. We also have moderating right now. Oh, somebody's at the podium doing something. Did they put, I missed it. We also have moderating over there on Twitch. We have moderating, I got Idaho Star. I got that fire. Matthew Cohi3, Sarah in Fluxis. Thank you. Also on Twitch. Quick thanks to Larry Picklejar for the gift sub. RJ 603 for subscribing. And Linda Bel, Larry Misha for moderating on X and on Facebook, our moderators over there. I know Kay was over there before. Let me just get organized here. Pull that up. 11 minutes until we hear from Kevin Warsh coming up live. Oh, I can show our live graphic. Thanks to all of our moderators, Kay and everybody else. Dorothy Oz says, 'Are the rates going up? Maybe a buffer for something to come in economic development?' Look, they're raising rates because they think inflation, well, they say inflation is too high. It's higher than their 2% target rate. They think the employment situation is good right now. So, they have two things they're supposed to be doing. And what's not being done is inflation being lower. So that's why they say they're raising rates is because they don't see a big problem going on with employment right now, but they do see the problem with inflation being higher than the 2% it's supposed to be according to their dual mandate. That's the simplest explanation of why they're raising rates. Hey, look, I can use this graphic. Ready? Let's see if this works. It's our live graphic. I never use it. I'll do it one more time. All right, there we go. I like the live graphic. Let's see. I'm also checking. Has President Trump posted on Truth Social? Will President Trump post on Truth Social during this press conference? I do not see anything on Truth Social yet from President Trump. Nothing. I just checked. I just checked. Let's see here. And in case you missed it, I just want to show you this again. Of the 18 policy makers of the 19, Kevin Warsh did not, but 18 submitted their projections of where they think interest rates should be at the end of the year. And this is what they said. In case you didn't see it, I'll quickly show it to you. Here is their target range for this year. So the C after today's rise 3.875 is what it is right now. Only two of the 18 think that it should stay there for the rest of the year. 12 of the 18 think it should go up by a quarter point further at the end of the year. See it says 2026 and four of the 18 think it should go up by a half point. Two no change for the rest of the year. 12 quarter point more rise four half point rise and that's for 2026. Oh, thanks to Gypsy Life who likes the live graphic. Thank you, Gypsy Life for your support. Thank you, Stannislav Babco. Thank you. Stannislav says, 'I just want to say I totally called it on the geopolitical point.' Thank you, Stannislav. Thank you, Samantha Reinoso. No Samantha, I did not see that. I'll have to check it out. I haven't seen that. Samantha Reynoso. Hang on a moment here. We have 7 minutes and 20 seconds. Samantha, I'll have to check for that later on. I don't see it right now, but I'll have to check for it later on. Thank you, Samantha. And thanks Pa Jeeper for being a member who said refresh refresh refresh. Thanks Curwin for your support and no not November from Denmark. And a Wendy, thank you. And CryptoKing, thanks for shouting out the mods and for your support. And Clanker Slop thought there might be a surprise rate cut, but that did not happen. Now, let me see if I have any updates here. Six and a half minutes until Kevin Warsh press conference. This was the first Fed rate increase since 2023. Now, what I'll probably do is when he starts taking questions, I might switch the camera angle because there's a different camera angle which will show the questioners, which I think is nice to do. If I can get that up on the screen here. So, I'll have to get that ready for you. But this is, we're waiting Kevin Warsh press conference. Let me just make sure I have that ready to go for you as well. The other angle real quick here. Okay, we're good. We're good to go. We're good to go. Judeland says rally into end of year. There are five minutes to go before the news conference. When the news conference begins, chairman's going to make a pre-opening statement. Then we'll take questions. If you do have a question, please raise your hand. Hi. Michelle Smith, communications director and chief of staff. She's going to be standing here. She'll call on you. When you're called on, please wait for the microphone to be passed to you. Chelsea and Darren are going to be passing microphones. We want to get to as many questions as we can. As a result, we're asking everyone who's called on to ask one question. If you have a multi-part question, feel free to ask it all together, but we want to get to everyone. We want to get to as many reporters as we can. Again, Gary and Chelsea have the mics. They'll take it back from you when you're done. After your question's answered, Michelle's going to call the next reporter. Please take a moment to silence any phones, laptops, watches, anything that's going to make sound. We'll give you a two-minute warning. Thank you. Okay, so we got a five-minute warning, but the five-minute warning was before he talked, so I think it's more like four minutes. And he said they're going to give us a two-minute warning. There you go. Stats says Trump overturning decision. I don't think it works that way. I forgot my lip balm. Oh, here it is. I found my lip balm. The day is saved. We have about 3 minutes right now till this press conference. Kevin Warsh, Fed chair. Now, he is someone who doesn't like to give a lot of, he's known as someone who doesn't like the idea that the Fed gives a lot of clues in advance as to what it'll do. So, I'm guessing there'll be a bunch of questions about trying to get out of him what's coming and him maybe resisting that. But again, 16 of the 18 policy makers who submitted projections, everybody except Warsh said they believed either one or two more rate hikes this year is warranted. And there's only two more meetings the rest of the year, late October and early December. Appreciate you being here for our coverage today. I will keep checking President Trump's Truth Social during the press conference. First rate hike since 2023 for the Fed and it's a sensitive time. I mean, the election's less than two months away. I broke something. Sorry. Now, he hasn't said two minutes yet, but it's supposedly less than two minutes. There he is. That's the guy who said something before. He's peeking out the door. He's coming back in. Okay. Two-minute warning. Two minute warning. Oh my gosh. Two minute warning. Should I leave the clock up? I'll leave the clock up for now. It's less than two minutes until Kevin Warsh comes in. Wow. I gotta get ready to put his name on the screen. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. Here we go. Oh, thank you Nick for mentioning that. Thanks, Nick. I'll keep an eye on that. Thank you, Nick. I think our clock's going to go to zero before he comes in because I think it was about 30 second difference. Get ready for the Fed chair. All right, I'm getting rid of the clock. Getting rid of the clock now. Here we go. The door is opening. Here he comes. Let's hear from Kevin Warsh.
