· Thursday
Daily briefs generated by sembr, the open-source semantic intelligence engine · every item links to its sources
FOMC Day: Warsh's First Meeting Delivers Hawkish Shock — Dot Plot Flips to Hikes, Forward Guidance Abolished, Market Reprices Sharply
The June 2026 FOMC meeting under new Chair Kevin Warsh delivered a decisively hawkish outcome — the dot plot flipped from March's cut signal to a 9-9 tie on hikes, inflation forecasts were raised sharply, the easing bias was removed, and forward guidance was abolished — triggering a steep repricing of rate expectations (September hike now >50% probability), a 2-year yield spike to 4.20%, a USD breakout above 100, and equities/gold selling off, while the abolition of forward guidance structurally increases FOMC-day volatility going forward.
Strait of Hormuz Deal Takes Effect, Traffic Slowly Edges Up as Oil Breaches $80 Floor
Fragile de-escalation continues as the US-Iran MOU takes effect remotely, transit edges up to ~10 vessels Thursday morning, and the threat level is downgraded from "severe" to "substantial," but oil prices breach $80 (Brent ~$77.9) on supply-reopening expectations while shipping and insurance hurdles remain unresolved.