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Federal Reserve News: Rate Policy & FOMC
Federal Reserve news and analysis: FOMC decisions, the rate path, inflation data, and chair succession, tracked daily by Apprised.news.
Scanning: live wire + /desk/intel/desk/markets
Latest coverage · last 14 days (7)
Wall Street ends mixed as investors focus on tech earnings
Wall Street ended mixed today, as investors awaited guidance from major technology companies in a busy week for quarterly earnings, while also worrying that stubbornly high oil prices could force the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates.
Prediction Market Traders Brace for Surprise Fed Rate Hike
Prediction market traders have pushed the odds of a July Fed rate hike to 27% on both Polymarket and Myriad, rising double digits in the last 24 hours.
Putin and Trump Have Something in Common: They Want Large Warships
A renewed Russian effort to return its Admiral Nakhimov battlecruiser to service could spur Trump to push harder for his namesake class of battleships. The post Putin and Trump Have Something in Common: They Want Large Warships appeared first on The National Interest.
Taiwan Navy Commissions First Batch 2 Tuo Chiang-Class Corvette
On July 24, 2026, the Republic of China (ROC) Navy (Taiwan’s Navy) commissions its first Tuo Chiang-class Batch 2 catamaran corvette. Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te (賴清德) presided over the commissioning ceremony for the Navy’s newest warship, ROCS Tan Chiang (丹江, PGG-627), at Tsoying Naval Base (海軍左營基地), Taiwan’s largest naval facility. The ceremony was also attended ... The post Taiwan Navy Com
USNI News Western Pacific Pulse: July 24, 2026
The following is a summary of major ship movements and exercises in the Western Pacific over the last week. In Hawaii U.S. and partner forces conducted a group sail Wednesday, with aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN-71) leading the flotilla of ships and submarines as part of the U.S. Navy-led Rim of the Pacific 2026 exercise. Additionally, two decommissioned warships, cruiser USS Mobile
Federal Reserve Board issues enforcement action with former chief lending officer of Heritage State Bank
Federal Reserve Board issues enforcement action with former chief lending officer of Heritage State Bank
Analysis from Apprised desks
Iran ceasefire sparks 5% oil plunge; futures rally ahead of Fed and Big Tech earnings
The most significant overnight development is the US-Iran pause in hostilities, which sent WTI crude down more than 5% in early Asian trade to $84.47 and Brent to $91.80, unwinding a war premium that had pushed Brent above $100 during two weeks of escalation. US stock-index futures rallied on the news as Wall Street prepares for a collision of catalysts: the Federal Reserve's rate decision, Big Tech earnings, and a still-elevated geopolitical baseline. The quantitative backdrop entering the week shows VIX at 18.70 — up 12.4% day-over-day but still in normal territory — a 10Y-2Y curve at a narrow 0.36pp positive, HY OAS at a tight 2.77%, and WTI still $14 above its 30-day-ago level despite today's drop. The ICI weekly flow data confirms the tension: equity funds bled $18.1 billion in net outflows last week while money market assets rose $7.9 billion, suggesting retail hedging even as credit spreads stayed compressed.
Caldera Convexity
VIX at 18.70 is up 12.4% day-over-day — a single-session vol spike that tells you someone was buying protection into the weekend — but it remains below the 20 handle that would trigger systematic vol-control de-risking mandates. That 20-threshold matters: risk-parity and vol-control funds are roughly calibrated to begin cutting equity exposure when 30-day realized vol climbs through that level. We're not there. The 30-day annualized vol on SPY implied by the options market is consistent with a VIX in this range, and the HY OAS at 2.77% — tight, not wide — confirms the credit market is not pricing a regime break.
The term-structure question is more interesting than the spot VIX. A 12.4% one-day spike in VIX on a geopolitical event that then partially resolves over the weekend is a textbook tail-hedge unwind scenario: whoever bought downside into Friday is now sitting on mark-to-market gains that they'll likely monetize Monday morning, which mechanically suppresses VIX through the open. The risk to being short vol here is the Fed meeting this week. If Powell surprises in any direction — more hawkish on sticky core, more dovish on the labor market — the vol-compression trade snaps back hard. The asymmetry of the short-vol position is not symmetric around a 2.81% Sticky Core CPI print going into a live meeting.
I want to directly engage Sightline's read: Miles and Jenna are right
Coiner's Credit Review
The bond market has done something interesting and markets have not yet fully appreciated it: the 10Y-2Y at 0.36pp (FRED) means the curve has normalized off the inversion, effective Fed funds sits at 3.63%, and yet MarketWatch is now openly entertaining a rate hike as the Iran crisis pushes Treasury yields toward their war-onset highs. June CPI came in at -0.35% MoM (BLS, index 333.952, YoY +3.53%) — the Fed crowed about this print for about two weeks before oil started climbing back through $84 and is now approaching $96 on the Brent side. We marveled at how quickly the narrative flipped from 'mission accomplished on inflation' to 'don't fight the Fed upward.'
HY OAS at 2.69% is historically tight — tighter than 2006 pre-GFC tight, in the neighborhood of tight that has preceded every meaningful credit repricing of the past thirty years. The credit market is not pricing the geopolitical risk at all. It is pricing the labor market (unemployment 4.2%, average hourly earnings +3.52% YoY per BLS) and assuming the Fed doesn't move. That assumption becomes fragile if WTI sustains above $90 for more than a quarter. When credit finally reprices, it reprices fast — and the PIPE deal in the SEC 8-K log (Scilex Holding Co, CIK 1820190, Item 1.01) is the kind of quiet activity that precedes broader stress, not follows it. The prospectus pages that matter here are the ones nobody is readin
Indo-Pacific
China tested new coast guard and ICBM-based deterrence methods against rivals in Asia, per Military Times; the Telegraph separately reported on PRC planning for strikes on U.S. warships. The WSJ reported U.S. Coast Guard is moving into disputed waters Beijing aggressively patrols.
Coiner's Credit Review
The credit markets, in their infinite wisdom, have decided that a reinstated naval blockade of the Strait of Hormuz — through which approximately 20% of global oil flows — is worth a rounding error. HY OAS at 2.69%, up a majestic three basis points over 30 days. We marveled. The effective fed funds rate sits at 3.62% — that's 3.62% against a June CPI of +3.53% YoY, which means real short rates are barely positive. The Sticky Core CPI, Atlanta Fed's preferred formulation, prints at 2.81% YoY as of FRED's latest. Credit is not being compensated for the scenario where WTI moves from $69.60 to $85+ on a sustained Hormuz closure.
The curve at +0.40pp (10Y-2Y) is the monetary system's verdict that the Fed will cut before it raises — it is priced for a soft-landing continuation that assumes the oil shock stays transient. We are less sanguine. The historical parallel that concerns us most is not 1973 but 1979: a supply shock that arrived into an economy where the Fed had already paused tightening, where the first inflation wave was thought defeated, and where the second wave required double-digit nominal rates to extinguish. We are not calling 1979. We are noting that the architecture — cooling but above-target CPI, near-zero real short rates, and a kinetic Hormuz event — is uncomfortably similar in outline.
The Fed's discount rate meeting minutes from June 8 and June 17, 2026 (publi