Interest Rate-Hike Expectations: CHART OF THE DAY
Forecasters extrapolate the status quo → but reality delivers wars, plagues, tech disruptions, fiscal breakdowns → this simple extrapolation breaks → the occasional “correct” forecast is survivorship-lucky, not prescient. The frame is screenwriter William Goldman by way of markets — “nobody knows anything”:
Barry Ritholtz sends us to:
And he comments:
Barry Ritholtz: Nobody Knows Anything, Rate Expectations Edition <https://ritholtz.com/2026/09/nobody-knows-anything-rate-expectations-edition/>: ‘It’s from the San Francisco Federal Reserve (via Torsten Slok of Apollo) and shows Wall Street expectations for Federal Reserve rate action. It’s the perfect explainer for why forecasts tend to be so inaccurate…. Forecasts are, for the most part, simple extrapolations of the status quo or the current trend…. When you stumble across a forecast that turned out to be more or less correct, it usually means nothing happened, and the extrapolation proved to be randomly correct. But most of the time, $h*t happens…. The parade of endless random events derails even the most thoughtful of predictions…. Market implied fund rate paths? Extrapolate all you want, just don’t assume nothing will happen that disrupts that prior trend…