Tomas Ferreira
Tomas covers commodities, currencies, and the bond market, reporting on how moves in oil, gold, and Treasury yields feed through to stocks.
Articles by Tomas Ferreira
A Quarter-Point Is Already Priced. The September Dot Plot Is What the Fed Still Has to Decide
Futures put roughly nine-in-ten odds on the Federal Open Market Committee lifting its target range on Wednesday, and 86 of 101 economists in a Reuters poll agree. The open question is what the Summary of Economic Projections says about everything after that — and whether an inflation problem driven by gasoline justifies a policy rate aimed at core.
Rate futures head into the Fed's blackout window with a September hike still a live question
Short-dated Treasury yields rose on Friday after the August employment report landed far above forecasts. With Fed officials now barred from public comment until Sept. 17, futures pricing has become the only running commentary on the Sept. 15-16 meeting.
Small business optimism slipped to 98.7 in August as the uncertainty gauge stayed 21 points above normal
The NFIB index released Tuesday gave back 1.1 points from July's reading, which the trade group called the highest since August 2025, but held above its 52-year average. The survey's uncertainty reading fell to 89, still far above its long-run level of 68.
Payrolls Rose 162,000 in August, and July's Reported Job Loss Was Revised Into a Gain
The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a hiring gain roughly three times what forecasters expected and lifted June and July by a combined 55,000. The unemployment rate was unchanged at 4.1%.
Hike Odds Climb Past 60% and US Crude Slides Under $90 as the Tape Splits After Payrolls
CME FedWatch pricing for a September increase rose to 60.2% Friday from 49.4% Thursday, the Associated Press reported. On AP's morning snapshot the two-year Treasury yield led the move while the 10-year held steady, and benchmark US crude fell 2.6% to $88.96 a barrel.
Trade Gap Widens 24% to $88.6 Billion in July as Capital-Goods Imports Hit a Record
Computers, computer accessories and semiconductors tied to the AI buildout pushed capital-goods imports to $140.3 billion. The Atlanta Fed's tracker now shows net exports subtracting more than a percentage point from third-quarter growth.
ADP Puts August Private Payroll Growth at 38,000, Below the 48,000 Economists Expected
The payroll processor's August tally came in about 10,000 below the consensus estimate reported by Fox Business, which did not identify the survey compiler. Manufacturing and professional services shed positions, and education and health services alone added more than the entire net gain. The report is a private-sector estimate built from ADP's own client payrolls, not a preview of the Bureau of Labor Statistics count due Friday, and the two series have diverged sharply in recent months.
The 30-Year Treasury Closed September's First Session at 5.27%, Level With the 20-Year and Near Two-Decade Highs
Treasury's official par yield curve put both the 20-year and the 30-year bond at 5.27 percent on Tuesday, September 1, leaving 88 basis points between the two-year and the long bond. The pressure is not a purely American story: Bloomberg reported the same session that German 30-year yields were at their highest since 2011, the UK equivalent at levels last seen in 1998, and Australian long yields at a record in data going back to 2016.
Factory Growth Cools to 54.6% in August While July Job Openings Edge Up to 7.27 Million
The ISM Manufacturing PMI slipped a full point from July's 55.6% and undershot the Reuters consensus, with new orders and backlogs leading the decline. The Prices Index did not budge from 71.1%, and a separate Labor Department survey showed job openings holding roughly flat on the month.
September Opens on the Back Foot as Crude Climbs and the Long End Holds Near Multi-Year Highs
US stocks were lower across the board in Tuesday morning trade after two tankers were struck near the Strait of Hormuz overnight, sending crude higher and the volatility index up more than 6%. Monday's session had already closed lower, with the Dow shedding 374 points even as August ended as a winning month.
Initial Claims Fell to 203,000 and Continuing Claims Dropped to 1.78 Million, a Day Before the Payroll Benchmark Revision
The insured unemployment rate stayed at 1.2% in Labor Department data released Thursday. The figures measure people losing jobs, not people finding them, and Friday brings a much larger revision to the payroll record.
Core PCE inflation held at 3.3% in July as real consumer spending barely moved
The Bureau of Economic Analysis released July personal income and outlays and the second estimate of second-quarter GDP at 8:30 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, with the Census Bureau's advance durable goods report out the same morning. Real spending rose less than 0.1 percent, the saving rate sat at 3.0 percent and second-quarter growth stayed at a 1.5 percent annual rate.
Consumer Confidence Slipped to 89.4 in August. The Part About Today Got Better and the Part About Tomorrow Got Worse.
The Conference Board's headline index fell 0.8 points, but the Present Situation Index rose to 121.2 while the Expectations Index dropped to 68.2. More consumers said jobs were plentiful; fewer expected their income to rise.
Iran Sanctions and New Canada Tariffs Split Monday's Tape as Wall Street Waits on Nvidia and Jackson Hole
Stocks opened Monday pulling in two directions, with technology lagging while industrials held up, as traders waited on a Treasury sanctions announcement on Iran, absorbed the collapse of U.S.-Canada trade talks and the 50% tariffs that followed, and positioned ahead of Nvidia's Wednesday results and the Jackson Hole symposium. Figures for Monday are intraday and the session is still open; Friday's closes are the last settled levels.
50% U.S. Tariffs on About $20 Billion of Canadian Goods Took Effect Aug. 22; Ottawa Says Matching Duties Begin Sept. 8
Three days of talks in Washington collapsed late Friday, and duties of 50% on roughly $20 billion of Canadian products — about 5% of Canada's exports — took effect at 12:01 a.m. ET Saturday, Aug. 22. Prime Minister Mark Carney says Canada will match them dollar for dollar starting Sept. 8, a date still ahead. Two-way goods trade ran to $376 billion in the first half of 2026, and the first inflation reading whose reference month overlaps the new duties will not arrive until late September.
Bessent says the buybacks could run past $4 billion per issue. The long end gave back about half his relief rally inside a day.
One day after Treasury doubled planned repurchases of longer-dated debt to $4 billion per operation, the 30-year yield gave back about half of the decline it had just made, and the Treasury secretary went on television to say the size could go higher still. The 30-year touched 5.33 percent on Tuesday, a 19-year high, fell to 5.183 percent on the announcement, and was last trading at 5.24 percent late Thursday — still below where it stood before Treasury spoke.
Initial claims fell 6,000 to 206,000. The four-week average rose anyway. The rolling window, not the labor market, explains the contradiction.
The Labor Department's August 20 release showed seasonally adjusted initial claims down 6,000 to 206,000 while the four-week moving average rose 4,250 to 204,000. The week that dropped out of the window carried 189,000 claims, a figure the department's own table prints — 17,000 below the week that replaced it, and 17,000 divided by four is exactly the 4,250 move.
The Philadelphia Fed's six-month outlook index is the highest since August 1983. Its current price gauges fell — but not one firm reported paying less.
August's Manufacturing Business Outlook Survey put current general activity at 47.4, a five-year high, and future general activity at 73.6, which the bank calls its highest reading since August 1983. Prices paid fell 13 points to 40.9, yet zero percent of respondents reported a decrease, and the forward prices-paid index sits 22 points above the current one.
Import Prices Fell 0.4% in July. Strip Out Fuel and the 12-Month Rate Is the Fastest Since 2022.
Tuesday's BLS release has two properties most readers will skip: it excludes duties, and none of it is seasonally adjusted.
U.S. Housing Starts Sank 12.4% in July as Building Permits Climbed
New home construction fell to a 1.24 million annual pace in July even as building permits rose, the Census Bureau reported, underscoring a construction sector still squeezed by affordability.
July Housing Starts Due Tuesday After Builder Sentiment Ticks Up to 35 in August
The Census Bureau publishes July new residential construction at 8:30 a.m. ET Tuesday, a day after the NAHB/Wells Fargo index rose one point to 35. June's 19.0 percent jump in total starts was almost entirely multifamily, and neither report settles whether single-family building has stopped drifting lower.
Business Applications Rose 8.1% in July. On Our Arithmetic, Retail Trade Accounts for Almost All of the Gain.
The Census Bureau's July Business Formation Statistics show one industry row up 44.5 percent in a single month. The series that requires an applicant to name a first wages-paid date went the other way.
The Philadelphia Fed's Forecaster Panel Lowered Its Recession Odds in Every Quarter Both Surveys Covered. It Also Cut This Quarter's Job-Gain Pace.
The Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia published its Third Quarter 2026 Survey of Professional Forecasters on Friday. The 32-forecaster panel marked down the probability of a negative GDP quarter in all four quarters the two surveys share, raised its near-term growth path, and trimmed its estimate of monthly payroll gains this quarter to 45,600.
The New York Fed Calls It a Four-Year High. In the Same Table, the Orders and Shipments Indexes Both Fell.
The New York Fed's August factory survey landed Monday morning with a five-point jump in its main index. The indexes for the two components most people assume drive that number moved the other way — and the New York Fed's own overview page says the headline is not built from them.
Real Hourly Pay Fell 0.2% Over the Year. Real Weekly Pay Rose 0.1%. Both Numbers Are in BLS Table A-1.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics' Real Earnings release for July puts the over-the-year change in real average hourly earnings at negative and the over-the-year change in real average weekly earnings at positive. The entire gap is one-tenth of an hour on the workweek line — and the CPI figure the table uses is not the CPI figure in that morning's headline.
The Treasury Clearing Mandate Is 136 Days Away. Three Exemption Requests Are Still Open, and the Comment Windows Close Aug. 31.
The SEC's central clearing requirement for U.S. Treasury cash transactions takes effect Dec. 31, 2026. A statement from Commissioner Mark T. Uyeda dated Aug. 7 shows the Commission is still taking comment on three separate requests to carve pieces out of the rule, with all of those windows expected to close Aug. 31 — 122 days before the mandate bites. Two of the three were noticed in April, and the Commission has now reopened the comment period on both.
Net Interest Reached $963 Billion in the First Ten Months of Fiscal 2026
CBO's August 10 Monthly Budget Review puts net interest on the public debt at $963 billion for October through July, $117 billion more than a year earlier and ahead of both Medicare and the military. On the report's own timing-adjusted column, that one line accounts for more than half of the $209 billion rise in federal outlays.
Jackson Hole Is on the Calendar for Aug. 27-29. The Agenda Isn't.
The Kansas City Fed has published the dates and the theme for the 2026 Economic Policy Symposium, Kevin Warsh's first as Fed chairman. It has not published a programme, a speaker list or a confirmed address by the chair. Last year's release offers a timing precedent; it does not offer a promise.
The Fed's Board Has Nobody Scheduled to Speak Next Week. A Three-Week-Old Document Will Have to Do.
The Federal Reserve Board's own August calendar lists no speeches or public appearances by Board officials between Monday the 17th and Friday the 21st. The only scheduled communication is Wednesday's 2:00 p.m. ET release of the July 28-29 minutes, a record of a 9-3 hold in which three officials dissented in favour of a rate hike. Since that meeting, markets have cut September hike odds hard — from 72.3% on CME's tool the day of the decision to 25% on Polymarket by August 15 — without hearing from a single Board official.
The Credit Card Delinquency Number Everyone Quotes Is Measuring Old Debt, Not New Distress
A New York Fed research post published August 11 reconciles three credit card delinquency measures that had drifted apart. The gap turns out to be a reporting artifact: charged-off balances now linger on credit reports twice as long as they once did.
The High-Yield Average Is Hiding Its Tail
The broad junk-bond index sits near the low end of its recent range. The CCC cohort sits above 1,000 basis points. As of Aug. 13, 2026, the distance between the two rating tiers was the widest of the year, and the two halves of the credit market are no longer describing the same borrowers.
The 30-Year Stopped at 5.216%. What the Tape Did Next Was Not a Straight Line.
Treasury's $25 billion long bond cleared at a high yield of 5.216% on August 13, the costliest long-dated borrowing since 2001. But the bond rallied roughly four basis points that same afternoon before giving it back Friday — and the widely circulated "6.6 basis point tail" is not a tail at all.
Consumer Sentiment Fell to 51.0 in Early August. Inflation Expectations Went the Other Way.
The University of Michigan's preliminary August index dropped 7.6% from July's final, expectations fell hardest, and only 8% of consumers now expect income to outpace inflation.
Reddit Joins the S&P 500 on Tuesday. The Mechanics Are the Story, Not the Pop.
S&P Dow Jones Indices adds RDDT before Tuesday's open in place of AvalonBay. J.P. Morgan puts the passive bid near 16.7 million shares — but the index effect is not what it used to be.
July Retail Sales Fell 0.6%. Read the Footnote Before You Read the Headline.
The Census Bureau's advance estimate put July retail and food services sales at $763.6 billion, down 0.6% from June against forecasts for a small gain. The asterisk everyone will point at is attached to the June revision, not to July's decline.
Low Layoffs, No Hiring: The Split Labor Market the Fed Has to Price
Weekly jobless claims rose to 209,000 on Thursday but remain historically low, even as July payrolls fell and 103,000 jobs vanished from prior months in revision. The two series are telling opposite stories, and a Federal Reserve debating a rate hike has to reconcile them.
Asia's AI Trade Carried the Overnight Tape Into a Softer US Inflation Print
Seoul posted a second consecutive gain of more than three percent and Tokyo followed, while European shares edged higher and US futures hovered near flat. Then July producer prices landed flat and jobless claims rose, taking pressure off the rate-hike case the overnight bid had been leaning on.
Thursday's producer price report tests whether June's energy relief was a one-off
June's PPI fell 0.3% almost entirely because gasoline collapsed. Crude has since climbed back toward $90, and economists expect wholesale prices to turn positive again in the July data due at 8:30 a.m. ET.
Stocks advance as July CPI lands on forecast and September hike odds fade
An inflation print that matched expectations down to the decimal point let Wall Street push the S&P 500 back toward its record, with chip and AI infrastructure names doing the heavy lifting.
Stocks Drift Near Records as Wall Street Weighs Iran Impasse Ahead of CPI
The S&P 500 hovered near record territory Tuesday while the Dow edged higher and the Nasdaq slipped, as traders balanced stalled U.S.-Iran diplomacy against Wednesday's pivotal inflation report.