---
title: 'The Coming Surprise Rate Hike'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=X7pKCMoPi6U'
video_id: 'X7pKCMoPi6U'
date: 2026-09-29
duration_sec: 1575
channel: 'Meet Kevin'
---

# The Coming Surprise Rate Hike

> Source: [The Coming Surprise Rate Hike](https://youtube.com/watch?v=X7pKCMoPi6U)

## Summary

This video analyzes the recent market downturn, focusing on three major uncertainties: upcoming tech earnings, escalating Middle East conflict with Ukraine involvement, and the Federal Reserve's potential rate hike. The host provides a noob versus pro perspective on interpreting market signals and emphasizes the importance of understanding context in financial analysis.

### Key Points

- **Pre-market deception** [00:03] — Futures indicated a green day but markets turned red, highlighting market volatility and uncertainty.
- **Three massive uncertainties** [02:45] — The host identifies three key factors: Microsoft/Meta earnings, Iran conflict with Ukraine involvement, and Fed policy. He predicts an 80% chance NASDAQ 100 hits $675.
- **Earnings and capex concerns** [03:54] — Market fatigue with big tech spending on AI capex and memory, with high expectations already priced in.
- **Geopolitical manipulation** [04:19] — Suggests Trump paused strikes on Iran to influence Fed decision on rate hikes, with 34% chance of a hike on Wednesday.
- **Ukraine joins conflict** [05:56] — Ukraine striking Iranian ships in Caspian Sea combines two wars, raising oil prices and complicating global supply chains.
- **Fed's hawkish stance** [12:01] — Kevin Worsh likely to be more hawkish due to rising yields and oil, despite previous comfort. Half of committee ready to raise rates.
- **Bond market expectations** [14:17] — Five-year break-even inflation at 2.19% and ten-year at 2.2%, indicating bond market trusts Fed to hike rates.
- **Noob vs Pro: Nvidia** [20:49] — Noob focuses on headline earnings, pro analyzes forward-looking revenue and growth expectations, cautioning on overvaluation.
- **Noob vs Pro: Fed rate hikes** [22:12] — Noob trusts betting markets, pro recalls Greenspan's dot-com bubble mistake, warns hiking at sensitive time could break economy.
- **Long-term strategy** [24:30] — Retail buying dip at lowest since pandemic, suggests cautious dip-buying. Software bounce likely short squeeze, not bottom.

### Conclusion

The video emphasizes the complexity of current markets with intertwining geopolitical and monetary policy risks. It advises investors to look beyond headlines and understand forward-looking fundamentals to avoid common pitfalls.

## Transcript

that yesterday futures told us would be a really green day and it turns red yet again. In this video, we're going to break down what just happened, what's to what to expect for the Federal Reserve on Wednesday. Really important with
rugpulled? And how does this affect short, medium, and long-term investing? We're going to break all of that down in this video. Exactly what to look for. going on with Iran and the fact that Ukraine is now getting involved, which
is really weird because last week it was Kuwait and Bahrain getting involved and now it's Ukraine getting involved. It just constantly has this feeling of a world war kind of starting, right? And I hate I'm not trying to sound hyperbolic,
people write in the comments, which was supposed to be a joke, but it just sounds more and more true every day when people go, "I was told if I voted for Kamla, there would be World War II." And then people say I was right or they were
right. [laughter] Right. Anyway, here we are. So, uh, joking aside because obviously, you know, joking in markets are a serious facts of the matter that we need to know here. I just do want to start by
mentioning I'm being told that a lot of you are not getting notifications for all of the videos. For example, I made a very big detailed deep dive on Tesla and SpaceX on their valuation and price targets, especially since the stock has
come down a lot, which in fairness, we did predict that these would bleed down and we're not trying to be nostis here. We're just trying to say there are happen and we should pay attention to those. Uh, and so that was a public
videos on these. If you're not getting all the videos, there a couple things you can do. Don't rely on YouTube to send you all the notifications. You honestly, don't even bother. In my opinion, download the Meet Kevin app. If
customize the notifications the way you want them. You can turn on all the YouTube notifications if you want. You'll never miss a video that way. And you can also use the totally free Alphawire service, which is really cool.
that Alpha Wire and you could see breaking news or earnings come across the newswire. This is literally what like the CNBC's and the Bloombergs use when they're like, "Oh, we've got some breaking news coming across the tape uh
and they read you out some of the issues that are coming across." Like here's one for example. Just one in three Americans back Iran war most unsure of Trump's just came through which is somewhat topical but matters a little bit less.
Just pointing out one of the things that was uh literally on here as I pulled this up. Uh a lot of good information there. it's worth seeing and it's less the notifications for videos. So, what's actually going on in uh markets right
now? Well, first pre-market the premarket told us futures told us that we should have had a really green stock market bounce today, but we didn't. We opinion, there are three massive uncertainties at play right now. All
three of these, by the way, I pitched in the alpha membership this morning. You could join that at me.com. The three of them are the following. This week, I said there was an 80% chance the NASDAQ 100 would hit $675
per share. And that was while the market was green by like 80 basis points in pre-market because I sent this alert out at like an hour before market open. I sent this out in the alpha report. I'm like, look, the market's green now, but
I think we've got an 80% chance of falling to 675 this week. Mind you, falling to 675 this week. Mind you, today we literally bounced at 676 on the triple Q's. So the proxy for the NASDAQ 100 and that's not being nostadus that's
100 and that's not being nostadus that's like a technical support level that we think we're going there? Because of We have to deal with Microsoft and Meta earnings which I mean after Google and
after Netflix people aren't chopping up and down about. They're probably going money on memory and we're spending more money on capex. And wait for it, let me zoom in. the market is tired of that. [laughter]
[laughter] Okay. Then we've got less of an with Iran and the concern that now Ukraine is getting involved. I'm going to explain that and then we're going to get into the third issue. So, first of
manipulate the Fed right now to get them not to hike. And I personally think that Donald Trump is intentionally pausing strikes against Iran because he knows the Fed meeting is on Wednesday. Strikes conveniently stopped on Friday. News got
to spread of no uh uh strikes on Friday night. Uh so Friday night, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, it'll be Tuesday. And Tuesday and Wednesday is the Fed meeting. So during the Fed meeting, oh well, you know, strike was paused. Maybe
we can wait a little longer before raising rates. Got a 34% chance of a raising rates. Got a 34% chance of a rate hike on Wednesday. We've got a 66% one in three chance we're going to get a rate hike on Wednesday. Donald Trump
coming out saying the following. Talks are ongoing. There's a chance we can make a deal with Iran. There's a good chance we can make something happen, he says on Air Force One later. Trump, Iran is talking to us about making a deal
right now. [laughter] Yeah, the deal is eminent, folks. Don't worry, we're really close to a deal this time. It's sort of like ridiculous turned out to be a memorandum of misunderstanding. We're certainly in a
well worse off situation now where the Saudis are literally afraid to send their oil through the southern Baba Mandab street uh and instead they're going up through the Suez Canal adding weeks to their commute time frames.
We're already at low inventory levels for oil and natural gas around the world. We could have made it just fine and started restocking if the memorandum of understanding actually held. Oil would still be in freef fall, which
would be great. But of course, here we are again back at war. So Ukraine joining is now also problematic because now after Ukraine has started striking Russian, specifically Iranian ships, but they're, you know, obviously
interconnected, they trade together uh in the Caspian Sea, what you're really doing is in adding another front to both the Ukraine and Iran war. And that front actually sort of combines the two wars, which makes this just a really big
conflict. Russia now banned the export of diesel because they're afraid of Ukraine hitting more of their ships. But that sea is critical for Iran to get their drones from manufacturers inside of Russia, deep inside of Russia, all
the way down the rivers into the Caspian Sea to the northern coast of Iran. That's how they get their equipment. No, we're not aware of US strikes on that side, but Ukraine's basically like, "Hey, boys and girls, we're here to help
you." By the way, can we have a little more money? We need some more money to help uh fight off Russia over here. In fairness, we kind of know that the Ukraine war is essentially a proxy war against Russia where, you know, it's
Ukrainian bodies, American money fighting Russia to keep Russia essentially depressed. Anyway, which also depresses China, right? And the idea is it makes the US stronger. Of course, what we're really
stronger in the Middle East, which is a big issue. And that of course leads to point number three. Now, again, I'm I'm not I'm going to get into point number three here because it's really big. I'm not trying to be uh you know, some some
soothsayers like everything I do is correct. I'm not saying I'm perfect. What I like to do is put a reasonable hat on. When I put a reasonable hat on, it is designed to protect us against FOMO, to protect us against yoloing, to
protect against not having a thesis for making moves because if you just buy to work out, you're going to get crushed. Look at, for example, the crushed. Look at, for example, the Boxable uh IPO. I mean, this is by far
uh embarrassing, but it was frankly predictable. You could literally type into YouTube a video where I interviewed these folks at the Boxible facility. And we found out in my opinion that this was basically a scam. And I made a video on
it. I'm like, Boxible is basically a $3 billion scam. I said, blocked me on X. They never did sue me because everything I said was JUST WHAT Like what we said was either our opinion
fact. So, it's kind of hard to sue somebody when you're doing that. Uh, and you know, that was a video I made warning about Boxible. Boxible down just warning about Boxible. Boxible down just today 13%. It's down 60% from its spack
price and down like 70% from its IPO in the span of like a week. Fundamentals can tell us that something like that is going to happen. like a SpaceX is going to bleed out before it can actually grow. You got to
can grow. It's like the pain first, then you can grow. In the case of Boxible, opinion, I don't know this. I'm researching this for a separate video. founders are siphoning money out of Boxible because they know it's a sinking
charity and then paying themselves big money at that at that charity. I don't know that. That is an opinion. I am researching if that is true. Uh that could be entirely false. It's it's uh you know, call it a rumor. Don't sue me,
bro, on that topic, but that wouldn't surprise me because of the other shy stuff I've seen before. But before we confirm that, we will do the research on that. So, that is a an unsubstantiated opinion right now. We'll see. I'll get
back to you on that. Some of my suspicion comes from the fact that when kind of implied that they had in their previous marketing, they, you know, they they interjected a charity with that. And that's where some of my suspicion is
fundamental reasons for some of this stuff and that's why paying attention to also really important. So, we're going to talk about that now. Uh, in honor of like all this disaster that's going on and frankly this was a really good call
lot of people money on this and over the past few weeks, we are doing a coupon code. Now, it's something that you really have to know about this. We're Disney red or or cruise red I think we're calling it as the coupon code for
in honor of being here uh on the cruise. Uh something that you really have to Uh something that you really have to know is yes uh we will regularly have know is yes uh we will regularly have sales but the price goes up over time.
not always a coupon active. Buy when there's a coupon, but the sooner you buy, the more you can lock on that or lock in that earlier price because we and we expect this price to keep going up and up and up. So, as this expires,
consider checking that out over at mekevin.com. Qualifies to reinvest.co as well. The real estate data, which is really, really cool wedgefinding uh information. Check that out over at reinvest.co or houseack.com. Fantastic
application in beta, but it's getting good. I'm I'm excited about this. So, Walsh is really interesting because Kevin Walsh he came out and he told us
that hey guys we have um you know comfort in the fact that yields and inflation are coming down. This is really good but the problem now is that
was in the middle of June and I don't think it's a surprise that the stock Right? We've talked about this. It's not a surprise that during the great suckening when Google raises money at the beginning of June, SpaceX IPOs and
hawkish all within the first two weeks of June there. It's not a surprise that the NASDAQ 100 essentially topped in the first two weeks for 17ish days of June. Not a surprise at all. That's a lot for the market to absorb. So the market's
including a hawkish Fed. Now, what do we have going into this Fed meeting? Well, what we have is a Kevin Worsh that during the last meeting and during uh his congressional testimony said we have no tolerance for persistent for
persistently elevated uh inflation. June CPI being soft was not a mission CPI being soft was not a mission accomplished. We still have inflation as a uh an elevated risk. This was from the July monetary policy report driven by
terrorists, the Middle East war, and AI demand. And in June at the FOMC meeting on the in the middle of the month of June, we had half of the participants of the meeting prepared to raise rates. Okay. Now, during that time, we had half
of committee members prepared to raise rates. What did we have? We actually had a memorandum of misunderstanding and hope that oil prices were falling, yields were coming down, everything was chilling out. What we have now is
substantially worse. What we have now is yields way up. and oil way up again. This is bad. So, if you thought Worsh was hawkish the first time, expect he's
going to be even more hawkish this time because he has to keep bond market credibility. That's a problem because it means he kind of needs to get ready to start laying up a potential hike unless the jobs data starts rolling over, which
is also bad because to some extent some of the jobs data is already rolling over when you look at the ADP data. Tomorrow we'll have another ADP weekly report. subscribe, follow the channel, go to the Me Kevin app, whatever. You can even use
the alpha wire. You know, you get that for free. Go use the alpha wire in the Me Kevin app and then you can see it come through at 5:15 a.m. tomorrow. You should see it come through. Uh but anyway, um you've got oil prices uh you
know, bobbing around 90 bucks. Uh slightly below today. Nice on these sort of talks of pauses, but still way up from the $70 where we were just a couple weeks ago. You've got bond yields up 30 or 40 basis points from where we were
during the last meeting. It's almost like the market has hiked twice in the time that we've been uh uh essentially waiting for Worsh's second meeting. Now Kevin Worsh did talk to us over at CRA which was useful. That was at the
Portugal event with Sarah Eisen. And at that event with Sarah Eisen, uh he actually made it clear to us that hey, you know, we are optimistic that inflation is going to keep coming down, he said, this is where he told us that
he is incredible comfort that expectations for inflation are also low, which is fantastic. Uh he says, well, actually, if we look at the data, the five-year break even rate, Hey, hey, buddy. Uh hold. Okay, hold on one
Somebody's ringing the bell. That's inconvenient. Uh all right, I think that worked. That's actually kind of cool. You could now pause a video on the iPhone. But but look at this for a moment. Uh if you look at the 5-year
break even rates, fortunately, the bond market believes Worsh that is going to hike rates. The 5-year break even is just at 2.19. The 10-year break even inflation rate is at 2.2. Those are both still off the May
at 2.2. Those are both still off the May 4th peak. May 4th peak was 2.74 on the 5-year break even inflation rate which is that's pretty impressive because you're getting close to 2% right you want those to be 2% and the
expectations are that worsh is going to get to 2% on the 5year term and the at the fiveyear forward so what's inflation going to be after five years and then the five years thereafter that expectation today is at 2.278 278
as of July 27th. Uh we had a high in 2026 that was close to 2.4. That was on May 19th. So we've actually seen the bond market say, "Hey, Wars is going to do the right thing. He's going to raise
rates." Now, obviously, I hope he doesn't raise rates. I want to see rates come down. But the poor guy is between a rock and a hard place. His thesis which he reiterated at CRA with Sarah Eisen
was that we were going to see inflation first and a risk of job loss during the careful to make sure we don't overreact to the inflation that comes first from the AI boom and then we worsen the layoffs during the efficiency phase
because he says quote the supply boom will come and that could also be a reason uh yields are trending down. Wars though has to now go up in front of uh everybody essentially at the FOMC and he's got to say, "Hey, look, give me
some more time. Let me buy some more time and we are going to get rates down." But remember, when things were good under the memorandum of half of the committee was ready to raise rates. Now things are worse. You're
committee ready to raise rates. Now, that doesn't mean that they're going to going to hinge on some of the jobs data that we really get over the next eight weeks, but this is really a tough place for wars to be in. The fact that this
war is now restarting and you've got now the Houthies getting involved, Bahrain involved, Kuwait involved. This is literally the opposite of what happened
the last time where he's taking incredible comfort. And that's where people will frequently take things out of context. He said, "Look, I'm taking incredible comfort that as long as the war, you know, keeps trending towards
good. We're good here. We're at a good place to hold." Then people take it out of context and They don't raise rates and they're like, "Well, you said you were comfortable and
you got to have the full context. Uh, you know, people do that with the stock market, too. It's like, "Oh, this stock could do really well if X and XYZ "Oh, this stock could do really well." and then ignore the ifxyz.
That's the fundamental part of analysis and that's the nuance that's frequently provide on the channel. I know sometimes people get mad at me, but I can't then the videos are too long and if the videos are too long, I don't want to
watch them or or like other people. I'm just going to AI summary it. That's fine. But the problem with that is there are two types of people. They're the people that are going to AI summary, do a quick skim, and miss all the context.
They miss the context. What happens? They don't understand. They can't internalize. So, when they get hit in the face with an oopsie in the future, they can't reason the way we do in these videos because they've never learned
together. So many of us have been here learning and studying this for years. And so, we could see these the delta, right, over and over again. It's sort of somebody left me a comment on the SpaceX video." They're like, "But Kevin,
how do you possibly say there's competition for Starling?" And I'm like, guess I should have. I'm replying to it in the video, I suppose." Here, Amazon literally today seeking approval to send 5,15 low Earth SATs to space, just like
5,15 low Earth SATs to space, just like Elon, for direct to device connectivity via their Global Star acquisition. And since they've already got about 300, I somewhere around 340 low Earth satellites already uh in space from
Amazon, they're looking at potentially pushing their direct to device service there's real competition coming there. So, let's now summarize all of this uh in um a little bit of Oh, yeah. Well, first let me talk about I guess we can
nub versus pro portion. We're going to see make sure people don't crash out of me doing new vers and trying to do that let's do this towards the end of the video here. Let's do a little summary
and let's take away what this actually means uh for being an investor. Hey, WANT TO YOU want to be in my video? You know what? We'll take her in the video. come hang out and play. Were you just in the water? You want to say hi? Can you
say hi to the camera? You're the shy one, aren't you? This is Violet. Can you >> Hi. >> Yeah. You're such a cutie. Okay. So, um, you want to Oh. Oh. Did you get a little cold at the pool?
spa together, didn't we? The spa was fun when we went in there together. Can you go to mom? I'll be right there in a moment. Okay. Hey, Max. Would you mind right out. >> Thank you. Get that GET VIOLET OUT
FIRST. NICE. THANKS, BUDDY. I'll be right there. All right. So, let's uh let's try to do We've We've really got like three things to summarize here. We got to talk about money implications for this as well, right? Okay. So, first
things first. All right. The noob hears about the Nvidia deals and how earnings are smoking numbers all of the time. And the pro looks at this and says, "Bro, we already know expectations are going to be. We already
know Nvidia is going to announce these circular financing deals because they have to. But even if they announce a $750 billion 10-year deal, maybe only 40% of that money is potential future revenue for chips, which only represents
maybe around $300 billion for them. And the problem with that is over 10 years. That only increases their potential revenue by somewhere around 11 12% a year. We want 30 40% growth at this company, baby. So the stock market looks
and says, maybe we don't need to reward Nvidia that much. And that's what the pro realizes is we don't only price in what's already happening. We're trying to look forward. See, a lot of people have been, you know, asking me, they're
like, "But Kevin, you know, memory is sold out through 2027." You know, I hear this all the time. The noob is like, "But Kevin, memory is sold out through "But Kevin, memory is sold out through 2020 or 2030. It's Memory is going to
CONSTANTLY GO UP IN PRICE FOREVER. HOW COULD YOU NOT BUY MEMORY STOCKS?" THAT'S already baked in. The fact that year-over-year memory prices are up 4x is a red flag. The pro looks and says memory price is up 4x. And the CEO of
memory price is up 4x. And the CEO of SKH saying we have infinite demand. Makes a pro look and go, "Yeah, I heard that story before with Elon telling us that we have infinite demand for Teslas." It's usually a sign you're
getting close to a topper. Right. Okay. Now, what about uh this this situation Now, what about uh this this situation here with Kevin Worsh? Okay. So, when it comes to Kevin Worsh, the noob says, "Oh, Kevin Worsh, he's going to end up
hiking rates one or two times because that's what the betting markets say. Uh, and everything's going to be fine." The pro looks and says, "No, no, no, not so fast. Allan Greenspan raised rates in the early 2000s, marked at the top of
the stock market, and ended up walking us into the dotcom bubble because you were hiking at the most sensitive time. We're already seeing jobs data roll over
from the boom in the first quarter. We're seeing jobs data come right back down and it's a very risky time for the Federal Reserve to be hiking rates because the economy might not be able to take and absorb another straw that could
take and absorb another straw that could end up breaking the camel's back. These are all fair points, right? Uh then we could do another one. You know, hey, the could do another one. You know, hey, the noob says if I voted for Kla Harris, I'm
going to get stuck with World War II. The pro says you're right. In fact, now The pro says you're right. In fact, now you've got Ukraine, Bahrain, Kuwait, all you've got Ukraine, Bahrain, Kuwait, all joining in attacks against Iran, while
Russia is supporting Iran, and silently China is supporting Iran. It's starting to sound like we're setting up, dare I say, two axis. say, two axis. This sounds not good. And any short-term
talk of a deal might just be Donald Trump trying to push the Federal Reserve not to hike rates because he knows all of these strikes are rising oil prices and sending yields straight up, which actually makes the Federal Reserve's job
even harder. Okay, good. So, what about long-term money implications here? Uh so my opinion is that since the great sucking it's been very difficult to actually find leadership in the stock market. We
did at least this morning it looked like we had a little bit of a software rally. Some stocks like CRM, Palante or whatever. Yeah, dude. Oh my gosh. IGV was up 3.3% today. That's fantastic. We have seen that many times since the
beginning of April. Let me just warn here. Very very common to get short squeezes in software. So, even though you might see a bounce in software, be careful. The one or two day bounces are usually just short squeezes. They don't
yet. Yes, a bottom in software will come that. I'm just I'm not calling that bottom yet. Uh the next thing that we have to think about is long-term. I'm still a believer that cautious using
cash to buy the dip is good. retail buy the dip levels have actually dropped to their lowest levels since like when the pandemic started which is kind of crazy. Uh so to me signals uh we should be doing a little bit of buy the dipping.
you want to see what we bought the dip on uh last week you could check that dipping as well this week. If you want to see exactly what we're buying and why thesis is, uh join us over at mekevin.com. You pay once, you get
get the alpha report through the meet Kevin app which is the same place you alphire. It's all you know one great system. Uh or you could get them on desktop if you want at app.mmeke.com. Again you want to join once at meet.com
get walk through on how to join everything. Uh we'd love to have you. Thank you so much. Uh use that uh cruise red [laughter] coupon code and uh you bullish it's that I'm going to be done with vacations on August 3rd. [laughter]
in the course membership. Oh well. Thanks so much for being here. We'll see you in the next one. Goodbye and goodbye.