In the space of a few months, the debate over US monetary policy flipped from how fast the Federal Reserve would cut to whether it would have to hike. This page follows that regime change, from the soft-landing consensus to a new chair and a market pricing rate rises. Each section links to our detailed analysis.
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The June CPI Report · 16 Jul 2026
The soft landing cracks
The Fed holding amid the Iran war captured the early bind between jobs and oil inflation, and the return of the hawk showed how the March minutes shattered the soft-landing consensus.
The stagflation split
The 8-4 split examined Powell’s last stand and a dissent of a scale not seen in three decades, as the committee fractured over the stagflation question. In July the data turned: the June CPI report showed headline inflation falling 0.4 per cent on the month to 3.5 per cent, with core at 2.6 per cent, and Warsh still refused to call it mission accomplished.
A new doctrine
Leadership change brought a new framework. The Warsh doctrine set out the regime-change pricing that arrived ahead of the April meeting, as the market began to read a discrete shift in how policy would be run.
From cuts to hikes
From cuts to hikes traced the repricing of the policy path, and the hawkish hold analysed Warsh’s first FOMC, a hold the market read as a hike and the end of forward guidance. The May inflation data then confirmed the shift, with core PCE at 3.4 per cent validating the committee’s hawkish projections. The labour market side of the bind is taken up in The June Jobs Report: 57,000 and the Hike That Faded, where a payrolls miss quieted the hike debate without settling it. The bet resurfaced within a week: the July oil shock and the 9-8 minutes put a September hike back at 64 per cent.
The through-line
Together these pieces chart one of the sharpest shifts in policy expectations in years, and why the front end of the curve, the dollar and risk assets have all had to adjust. We update this hub as the policy path evolves; the latest analysis always appears first on our analysis page. The regime’s global edge shows in the currency market: the yen at a 40-year low traces what happens when the Fed’s repricing collides with a central bank still normalising. The regime’s mark on the metals market is covered in gold’s quiet bear market, where hike pricing overwhelmed the safe-haven bid.