Simply Put

Even as Artificial Intelligence enhances productivity, it is also increasing cybersecurity vulnerabilities across the financial industry. New technologies like Anthropic’s Mythos add to bad actors’ abilities to disrupt the financial sector through fraud and Distributed Denial-of-Service attacks. Amid these risks, individuals, institutions, and governments have tools available to limit the signific...

The cost of shipping insurance in the Strait of Hormuz has surged over the last four months. Even after the US and Iran lifted their mutual blockade last week, insurers and ship operators are wary of safety in the narrow passageway and the stability of any agreement. The protracted riskiness will delay energy market normalization and push up the cost of oil transportation. In this episode, we talk...

Investors often use inflation swaps and breakevens — the difference in yields between nominal Treasuries and TIPS — to deduce market participants’ inflation expectations. These measures also change from new TIPS issuance, shifting inflation risk, and a liquidity premium, however, making them imprecise gauges of estimates for future inflation. In this episode, we talk with Mike Ashton, Managing Pri...

The Strait of Hormuz’s closure has driven up prices for fertilizer and diesel, two inputs essential for agricultural production. Considering how farmers pre-buy fertilizer and crops take months to grow, the higher costs may not be fully passed on to consumers until the spring of 2027. Agricultural production will be a bellwether as the Fed waits to see the second-order effects of higher oil prices...

The term premium — investors’ compensation for holding longer-term Treasuries instead of T-bills — fluctuates with inflation uncertainty, federal deficit worries, and central banks’ balance sheets. The New York Fed’s Adrian, Crump, and Mönch model estimates the 10-year Treasury term premium is higher than before the pandemic but substantially lower than it was pre- GFC. The post-pandemic term prem...

Changes in foreign migration caused US population growth to slow last year and potentially turn negative in 2026. Federal programs and private debt markets structured around an assumption of growth must now contend with the possibility of a shrinking labor force. Meanwhile, Fed officials have become remarkably sanguine amid near-zero job growth, convinced the labor market remains curiously in bala...

The Fed’s balance sheet has swelled from $900 billion in 2008 to just under $7 trillion in April 2026. Policymakers bought up securities to support the economy during the global financial crisis and pandemic, but critics allege the enormous balance sheet boosts inflation and distorts financial markets. If Kevin Warsh tries to reduce the Fed’s holdings as Chair, he must contend with the existing re...

The recently announced two-week ceasefire between the US and Iran is giving investors hope that traffic will normalize soon in the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway that before the war serviced a fifth of global oil supply. As countries search for workarounds to plug the shortfall, a spike in global commodity prices has reinvigorated inflation worries, prompted expectations for central bank tigh...

Private credit has outgrown its original niche of lending to middle-market firms using funds from institutional investors with long time horizons. Rising participation from retail investors and banks has increased the sector’s interconnectedness with the wider financial system, making investors worried that a wave of redemption requests could lead to a cascade of tighter financial conditions and s...

AI optimism is fueling expectations for a sustained post-pandemic productivity surge that supports robust economic growth and permits easier Fed policy. However, history suggests full technological implementation can take decades and some industries could still struggle to become more productive. As policymakers consider the impacts of profound technological change, they’ll have to confront diffic...

As investment into Artificial Intelligence continues to grow, construction of AI data centers is significantly increasing the demand for electricity, water, and land use across the country. These centers can require the same amount of water as a fifty-thousand-person town and could represent 12% of overall US electricity consumption in the coming years. Inflexible supply creates the risk of rapid...

The Federal Reserve influences financial conditions through the federal funds market, a private market consisting of unsecured overnight interbank transactions. As the locus of money markets moves away from fed funds and more towards repos and SOFR, Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan has argued the current policy regime no longer suits the financial system. In this episode, we talk with Bill Nelson,...

President Trump has nominated former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh to succeed Jerome Powell as Fed Chair later this year. Warsh called for “regime change” at the Fed last year, reiterating his long-held criticism of the Fed’s large balance sheet, data-dependence, and use of forward guidance. His tenure would begin with an already-divided FOMC and lingering worries surrounding threats to the Fed’s polit...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is poised to disrupt the labor market by replacing certain tasks and enhancing the productivity of others. Although these changes could eventually lead to broader prosperity, they could also cause worker displacement, increase inequality, and decrease entry-level work opportunities. In this episode, we talk with Lisa Simon, Chief Economist of Revelio Labs, about the wa...

Banks enter 2026 with a positively sloped yield curve, steady deposit growth, and a favorable regulatory environment. The outlook for the economy and Fed policy is highly uncertain, however, posing risks to loan demand, net interest margins, and the appetite for adding duration to balance sheets. In this episode, we talk with FHN Financial’s Jon Cantrell and S.J. Guzzo about bank deposit and loan...

The US economy entered 2025 in a delicate balance but quickly faced several federal policy shocks. Tariffs, changes to immigration policy, and efforts to trim federal spending dominated headlines and complicated investors’ ability to identify underlying economic momentum. By the end of the year, the unemployment rate had risen to 4.6% but growth was tracking above 2%, inflation was above the Fed’s...

A set of elements called “rare earths” have been at the center of many international trade negotiations this year. Crucial to producing certain industrial and consumer products, rare earths can take more than a decade to discover and are expensive to refine. China’s dominant position in the global supply of rare earths is giving it leverage as US trade policies seek to redefine the international e...

The ISM Manufacturing survey has shown US firms have struggled to plan long-term amid this year’s fluid tariff policy landscape. Economic uncertainty and the lingering risks of policy reversal are limiting manufacturers’ confidence in making big investment or hiring decisions. Meanwhile, AI promises to increase demand for some manufacturing sectors while revolutionizing the production of others. I...

Rural hospitals utilize various forms of public support to increase healthcare availability in areas with low population density. The OBBBA pairs spending cuts to these hospitals with incentives designed to increase efficiency and minimize waste. As populations shift and federal funding decreases, state governments will have to decide how to respond. In this episode, we talk with Steve Parente, Pr...

FHN Financial forecasts the economy will remain resilient next year and inflation will trend towards 2%, allowing the Fed to cut rates by 75bp in 2026. The outlook could nonetheless shift from several structural economic changes. The risk of eventual tariff pass-through to consumer prices will linger in the background, AI-fueled investment has buoyed the 2025 economy without much job growth, and t...

Recent revisions have cast doubt on the reliability of the government’s economic statistics. Budget cuts and job vacancies at the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) have exacerbated pre-existing issues from low initial survey response rates and the difficulty of identifying economic inflection points in real-time. Striking the right balance between timeliness and precision is essential for investors...

SEC Chair Paul Atkins said he is committed to fast-tracking President Trump’s proposal to change the frequency of corporate disclosure requirements from quarterly to semi-annually. Proponents argue the reform would significantly lower compliance costs and encourage more long-term thinking, while detractors believe it would decrease vital transparency that allows for price discovery and well-functi...

The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage fell 65bp between the beginning of June to the end of September, causing a mini refinancing boom from those who initially borrowed closer to this cycle’s peak rates. Most borrowers still have mortgages with rates well below the current market rate, however, reinforcing the “mortgage lock” that has stifled housing market churn over the last few yea...

FOMC participants disagree about current economic conditions as well as the current stance of monetary policy. The neutral fed funds rate, often called r*, is where policy is neither restrictive nor accommodative, and helps guide Fed officials’ assessments of optimal policy in the short- and long-run. As the Fed continues to normalize policy, the bond market will contend with the uncertain destina...

Countries around the world have started experimenting with central bank digital currencies, or CBDCs, to modernize their payments systems and increase accessibility to the banking system. Unlike money in a commercial bank, a CBDC in the United States would be backed by the Federal Reserve and could be transferred immediately between accounts, changing financial intermediation and how monetary poli...