Fed Rates, Risk Assets, Digital Infrastructure | BMTV Sep. 16, 2026

Grace Remington (0:05)

Good morning, and happy Wednesday. The 10-year yield touching an almost 20-year high. Reminder, the bond market, not just the Fed, is driving your investment conversation. Welcome into BMTV. I'm Grace Remington, alongside Sean Hagan. And the big question today is a Fed hike, all but a done deal. That plus the Clarity Act is not actually dead, despite what social media and the mainstreamers may tell you. Sean, we're going to break all this down and much more.

Sean Hagan (0:31)

Absolutely. And I'm feeling like King Midas this morning, because we're going to be touching a lot of gold.

Grace Remington (0:35)

We are. I'm excited for that. Coming up on the show, well, Sean gave you a little hint there, Peter Schiff, the one and only Schiff Gold Founder and Euro Pacific Asset Management Chairman, King Oei, Founder and CEO of Treasury, Mark Yusko, the Founder and CEO of Morgan Creek Capital, Mike Belshe, the CEO of Bitco and Joe Burnett, the Bitcoin Strategy Lead at Strive. So, packed show today, can't wait to get into it. But first, let's start with our headlines. It's Fed Day with the Federal Reserve widely expected to raise interest rates for the first time since 2023 The FOMC is set to announce the decision at 2 o'clock Eastern time with markets pricing in a quarter point hike as inflation remains elevated and oil prices have surged above $100 a barrel. The decision also comes as the 10-year Treasury yield hovers around 5 percent while President Trump has called for lower interest rates. Investors will be watching not just the rate decision, but comments from Fed Chair Kevin Warsh for clues on where monetary policy goes from here.

US investor sentiment has now fallen into the fear zone with the stock market fear and greed index dropping to 28 out of 100 this morning. That's down from 38 one week ago and 64 just one month ago. The index has remained in greed territory for much of the past year, but rising market uncertainty has now pushed sentiment deeper into fear. China front month crude oil futures reached $138 per barrel yesterday. The Shanghai benchmark contracts reflect physical delivery of medium sour Middle Eastern crude. This new high comes as China has reentered the oil market after drawing upon its reserves in August, per Reuters. US lawmakers are considering a potential ban on diesel exports as prices surge to record highs. Senate Majority Leader John Thune said he is open to exploring an export ban with the national average price of diesel rising above $6 a gallon. The potential ban comes as global diesel supply remains tight with disruptions to oil flows through the Middle East continuing. The US is the world's largest diesel exporter, meaning any restrictions could also affect fuel supplies abroad.

Deutsche Bank is set to launch a digital asset custody service for institutional and corporate clients in Europe later this year, subject to regulatory approval. The bank will manage client wallets and private keys with Bitcoin and selected stable coins including USDC and EURC among the assets supported at launch. The announcement marks another major traditional bank building infrastructure around digital assets with Deutsche Bank also planning to support tokenized financial instruments over time. The Senate failed to advance the Clarity Act yesterday with the bill falling short of the 60 votes needed to clear the procedural cloture vote. The 4950 vote stalls the landmark crypto market structure bill which would have established a federal regulatory framework for digital assets. The bill is not formally dead but the vote marks a significant setback for crypto legislation in Congress. Bitcoin and crypto related stocks also fell following the news with Bitcoin dropping about 4% at one point yesterday. So with that, let's take a look at the market. We're about eight minutes into your trading day and I'll start with Bitcoin. A little bit of a bounce back after that initial 4% fall yesterday, it's sitting at $75,547,000 down 3.7% day over day.

Gold sitting at $4,350 per ounce up one and a half percent. We'll take a look at the equities now. The SPY down almost four-tenths of percent sitting at $757.39 and the QQQ down six-tenths of a percentage point sitting at $704.54.

Obviously, all the conversation lately is about the yields, the 10-year breaking 5% for the first time since 2023 It sits at 5.01 on the day. The 30-year yield sitting at 5.38 on the day.

With that, Sean, anything catching your attention here?

Sean Hagan (4:33)

Yeah, look, I mean, it's to be expected. The market just opened, but everything's kind of paused. I think everyone's holding their breath to see what Warsh does. Is he going to give the markets what they expect, which is just a very slight raise? Or is he going to come in and be a bit more strong-handed, maybe do something like 50 basis points and really say, hey, we're taking this seriously?