New Fed Chair Kevin Warsh will be holding his first FOMC press conference tomorrow. His WSJ op-ed on 11/16/25 is likely a good blueprint. “AI will be a significant disinflationary force… Inflation is caused when government spends too much and prints too much.”
Which message will the stock market focus on if that is the blueprint? Note that the bond market right now has a slightly higher than 50% odds of a rate hike by year-end, so his belief that the Fed Funds Rate is too high due to AI would be bullish.
But he wants to reduce the Fed balance sheet which would be bearish. The Fed started “QE light” following its 12/10/25 meeting (less than a month after that op-ed piece) to alleviate near-term pressures in money markets. The Fed balance sheet since then has expanded by $186B.
For perspective, on 5/22/13, Fed Chair Ben Bernanke said in Congressional testimony that the Federal Reserve could begin to taper the pace of its bond-buying program (QE) in the coming months that it started during the Global Financial Crisis. The “taper tantrum” that ensued saw both bond and stock markets sell off. The S&P lost 5.0% over the ensuing month from 5/22 but then gained 17.5% from that low point through year-end. But the bond market saw 10-year treasury yields go up by 96 bps to 2.99% in just over three months and finished the year at just over 3% despite the Fed Funds rate remaining at 0-0.25%.
Given my view that “History May not Repeat Itself but it Often Does Rhyme,” my concerns lie more with the bond market (given the fiscal deficit of ~6% of GDP) than the stock market (given ~27% S&P EPS growth this year and my belief in Agentic AI.) The good news is with oil prices coming down, this acts as support to both.