Summary for the Week of August 28, 2026

  • Futures pricing put a September hike at 59 percent, from 35 percent Thursday, per CME data (Yahoo Finance); prediction markets Kalshi and Polymarket sat near even (CNBC).
  • Thirty-year yields fell five basis points to 5.22% while two-year yields rose ten — the third-largest weekly curve flattening of 2026 (Treasury daily curve, archived).
  • Gold entered Friday above $4,600, near a three-month high, and fell about 3 percent on the speech (USAGOLD, archived; the Warsh note).
  • Nvidia grew revenue 106 percent from a year ago, to $96.2 billion and announced partnerships targeting more than $500 billion of third-party capital to finance compute (Nvidia); the S&P 500 rose 0.5 percent on the week.
  • Brent spot fell 9 percent over Monday and Tuesday, to $88.24 from $96.92 (EIA via FRED, archived); by week’s end Iran and Oman had agreed the outline of a temporary Hormuz corridor, conditional on US steps (Al Jazeera), and Trump announced a Venezuela oil deal Saturday (Al Jazeera).

Through August, the argument about long-term yields was an argument about supply: the Treasury doubled its long-bond buybacks off schedule, the relief lasted two sessions, and the 30-year kept closing near 2007 highs. This week the chair said the inflation target is “firm, fixed” and that he would be “hard pressed” to call broad financial conditions restrictive — and when Friday’s speech repriced September, the two-year jumped fourteen basis points while the 30-year rose three, closing the week five lower than it started. The long bond’s fall came Monday and Tuesday, before the speech, as Brent spot fell 9 percent; the news is what the speech didn’t do to it.

Friday’s repricing hit two-year yields and barely moved the 30-year

The daily path shows what happened. Through Thursday the 30-year’s decline was real yield — its inflation-protected yield fell eight basis points, its breakeven held flat — with a 9 percent two-day drop in Brent doing the early-week work as Hormuz diplomacy intensified. The credibility test came Friday: a fourteen-basis-point jump in the two-year against a three-basis-point rise in the 30-year, a roughly 3 percent drop in gold, and the third-largest weekly flattening of 2026. That is what the curve looks like when investors believe tightening is coming — and not what it looks like when a buyer of last resort is propping the market. Michael Rosen (Angeles Investments) read Friday’s move the same way: short-term Treasuries sold off “in response to a Fed chair that sees inflation as the problem.”

The move now has named stakes on both sides. Luke Gromen (FFTT) set his own test the day before the speech: hawkishness may pull long-term yields down “maybe for a moment, but it’s not going to stay there.” Michael Hartnett (BofA) takes the other side, with bands: a 30-year below 5.0 percent is broad risk-on — everything rallies — 5.0 to 5.3 “supported but rotational,” above 5.3 policy failure. It closed at 5.22 — inside his middle band. Whether it stays down is the test Gromen set.

Each release added to the case for a hike

Headline PCE was 3.7 percent against the 3.6 FactSet consensus (Morningstar, archived); core held at 3.3, with an investment-fee line accounting for nearly half the monthly increase (the July PCE note). The GDP revision put corporate profits at 13.2 percent of national income, the highest share since 1947, while real household income fell (the Q2 note) — a record profit share set against falling real income and July’s negative payroll print: the inflation side of the ledger is the hawks’, the household side is not. And the payroll benchmark revision came in at −79,000 after three years averaging near 700,000, validating the employment data the hawks’ case rests on (the benchmark note).

Nvidia supplied the private-sector half of Warsh’s not-restrictive claim: revenue up 106 percent from a year ago, guidance of $108 billion assuming no data-center compute revenue from China, and financing partnerships with Apollo, BlackRock, Blackstone, Brookfield, Goldman Sachs and KKR targeting more than $500 billion of outside capital for compute. A committee wondering whether financial conditions restrain anything can read that announcement as its answer.

Treasury’s larger buybacks start September 9 — on a schedule that still says $2 billion

The doubled operations take effect September 9. As of this weekend, Treasury’s published buyback calendar remains the August 5 version, showing $2 billion maximums on the September long-bond operations, with the promised revision unposted eleven days after the announcement (tentative schedule, archived). One more detail the announcement left out: $4 billion per operation is what every nominal-coupon bucket inside ten years already had. The doubling brings the 30-year to parity.

Snapshot

Summary for the week of August 28, 2026Summary for the week of August 28, 2026

Watching

  • Tue Sep 1 — July JOLTS and August ISM manufacturing. The first of five releases that land before the meeting.
  • Fri Sep 4 — August jobs, 8:30 ET. The hinge. The first report in three years to arrive with a clean annual audit behind it; July was −23,000.
  • Wed Sep 9 — the larger buyback operations begin, if the schedule catches up to the announcement.
  • Fri Sep 11 — August CPI. The last inflation reading before the decision.
  • Tue–Wed Sep 15–16 — the FOMC decides. Futures near 60 percent for a hike; Joseph Wang (Fed Guy) at 90; Goldman and — before the speech — the Forward Guidance panel on no-hike. Someone’s record moves.
  • Thu–Fri Sep 17–18 — the Bank of Japan, with the yen back at 160 to the dollar; July’s joint intervention came with the yen near 163.

Sources

Data: Treasury daily yield curve · Treasury tentative buyback schedule (August 5 version, archived with this piece) · Warsh, “In Our Time” · Nvidia Q2 FY27 results · Fed pricing: CNBC, Yahoo Finance · metals: USAGOLD Aug 28 · oil: EIA Brent spot via FRED · Hormuz/Venezuela: Al Jazeera Aug 28, Al Jazeera Aug 29 · PCE consensus: Morningstar/FactSet · equities: AP. Voices: Joseph Wang, Markets Weekly Aug 29 · Michael Hartnett via Kodiak Trades · Luke Gromen via Market Sanity · Mohamed El-Erian, Weekly Look Aug 30 · Michael Rosen quote: Reuters via Devdiscourse. Builds on the Warsh note, the benchmark note, and the August 23 weekly. Figures verified and archived in the GeoMean data files.