The Iran war wiped out six months of rate-cut expectations. AI forecasting tools shifted before Wall Street did. Here's what it means for your money.
The Fed is holding rates at 3.5–3.75% this morning — traders priced in a 99% probability all week. That part isn't news.
What changed everything is the Iran war. Oil surged toward $100/barrel after US-Israel strikes, pushing inflation fears back up and forcing every major bank to rewrite their forecasts. Goldman Sachs pushed its first expected cut from June to September. Traders now see only one cut all year — December at the earliest.
"AI washing" is now an official business strategy — and it tells us more than companies intend. Sam Altman confirmed this week what many suspected: companies are attributing layoffs to AI that have nothing to do with AI.
A National Bureau of Economic Research study found that nearly 90% of surveyed C-suite executives across the US, UK, Germany, and Australia said AI had no impact on workplace employment over the past three years. An Oxford Economics report found many "AI layoffs" were actually COVID overhiring corrections.
So what's actually real? Here's the framework:
Real AI displacement: roles with high volume, low variance, clear output metrics — customer service, data entry, basic analysis, report generation.
AI washing: layoffs at companies that massively overhired in 2020–2022, now blaming AI to avoid PR backlash.
The distinction matters because it tells you which roles are actually at risk vs. which headlines are noise. Either way, the end result for workers is the same. But the signal for which skills to build is very different.
Real-time financial research with live data and cited sources. Ask it anything about today's Fed decision. Try: "What does today's dot plot say about 2026 rate cuts?" The Finance focus mode pulls from Bloomberg, Reuters, and SEC filings in real time. Free tier is genuinely useful.
Try Perplexity Finance →That's how fast the macro picture can shift. And AI forecasting tools shifted before Wall Street did. The gap between firms using AI for macro analysis and those relying on monthly reports is getting wider every quarter.
The dot plot at 2pm EST today matters more than the rate decision itself. If the median projection drops from 2 cuts to 1, every mortgage holder, every bond trader, and every CFO in North America recalibrates. Watch for that number.
Stay ahead of it. See you next Wednesday.
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