Markets

The Department of Homeland Security proposed on Wednesday to charge each F-1 nonimmigrant student $70,000 for an initial term of Optional Practical Training and $30,000 for any subsequent term, and gave three reasons for the fee: to combat fraud, to strengthen the integrity of the immigration system, and to protect United States workers. A companion proposal from the same department would rewrite the customs filing rules for imported merchandise valued at $2,500 or less, create a new electronic informal entry for goods arriving through the mail, and require carriers to report an additional data element and to post bond for certain informal entries. Neither proposal is final. The fee is the more consequential of the two, because it puts a five-figure sum on a benefit that is otherwise granted on eligibility, and its comment period is where the argument now moves. ...

The United States and Iran described two different waterways on Wednesday. United States Central Command said in a post on X that traffic was crossing the Strait of Hormuz carrying commercial goods and energy supplies, “including 20 million barrels of crude oil,” and that “the United States and regional partners clearly control the strait.” Mohammad Reza Naghdi, a senior adviser to the Revolutionary Guards commander-in-chief, said the same day that the strait “is closed, and the armed forces have full control over it,” and that it would stay closed until Iran’s demands were satisfied. Both statements carry the date October 7, and they cannot both describe the same water. Crude was up on the day: the front month for West Texas Intermediate stood at $89.10, up 0.93 percent, as of 8:31 p.m. Eastern. ...

Ninety Days From Today Count it out on a calendar. Ninety days from this morning is December 30, a Wednesday, which means this window closes two days before the year does. Between here and there sit two Federal Reserve meetings, on October 27 and 28 and again on December 8 and 9; a midterm election on November 3; a Treasury quarterly refunding on November 4; a government funding deadline on December 11; a Thanksgiving on November 26; and a Christmas on December 25. That is the window this article is about: one quarter of a year in which the world’s largest bond market has to price a war in its eighth month and a central bank that has told it, in plain language, to expect more. ...

Ninety Days From Today This is the third installment of a series I started on September 3. Same calendar discipline, same premise, new window. Ninety days from this morning is December 30, a Wednesday. The furniture in the room first. The Federal Reserve meets twice between here and there, on October 27 and 28, which the market now expects it to skip, and on December 8 and 9, which comes with a fresh Summary of Economic Projections and is the meeting that decides what the year looked like. In between sit a midterm election on November 3; the Treasury’s quarterly refunding on November 4; third-quarter earnings, which open on October 13 with JPMorgan and peak in the last week of October; three inflation reports, on October 14, November 10, and December 10; three employment reports, on October 2, November 6, and December 4; the minutes of this week’s Fed meeting on October 7; Nvidia’s quarter, which the company has dated November 17; a Thanksgiving on November 26; and a government funding deadline on December 11. Read the last three dates of the year in sequence: the Fed decides on December 9, inflation prints on December 10, and the continuing resolution expires on December 11. ...

Ninety Days From Today Count it out on a calendar. Ninety days from this morning is December 17, a Thursday. Between here and there sit two Federal Reserve meetings, on October 27 and 28 and again on December 8 and 9, a midterm election on November 3, a quarterly refunding on November 4, and a Thanksgiving on November 26. That is the window this article is about: one quarter of a year in which the world’s largest bond market has to price a war that shows no sign of ending and a Federal Reserve that just proved it will act anyway. ...

Ninety Days From Today This is the second installment of a series I started on September 3. Same calendar discipline, same premise, new window. Ninety days from this morning is December 17. The window is unusually well furnished, so let me put the furniture in the room before I say anything else. The Federal Reserve meets twice between here and there: October 27-28, which the market expects it to skip, and December 8-9, which comes with a fresh Summary of Economic Projections and is the meeting that will decide what the year looked like. In between sit a midterm election on November 3, three inflation reports (October 14, November 10, December 10), three employment reports (October 2, November 6, December 4), the minutes of this week’s Fed meeting on October 7, the Treasury’s quarterly refunding on November 4 (Treasury tentative auction schedule), third-quarter earnings season opening on October 13 with JPMorgan and peaking in the last week of October, and a government funding deadline on December 11. Read those last three dates in sequence: the Fed decides on December 9, inflation prints on December 10, and the continuing resolution expires on December 11. That is the whole year’s argument compressed into seventy-two hours, and it lands six days before this window closes. ...

The bond market is the one institution in American life that cannot be lied to. Politicians can promise anything. The Federal Reserve can hold rates and issue statements. But the price of a 30-year Treasury is a verdict, rendered every trading day, by people putting real money behind their judgment of where inflation, deficits, and credibility are headed. In the summer of 2026, that verdict has been unambiguous: the 30-year yield touched 5.2 percent, its highest level since 2007, and the 10-year has climbed past 4.7 percent even though the Fed has not moved its policy rate since late 2025 (Cox, 2026; Peterson, 2026). ...

Ninety Days From Today Count it out on a calendar. Ninety days from this morning is December 2. Between here and there sit a Federal Reserve meeting on September 16, a midterm election on November 3, and another Fed meeting in early December. That is the window this article is about: one quarter of a year in which the world’s largest bond market has to price a war that shows no sign of ending. ...

Ninety Days From Today This article is the companion to one I published this morning about the bond market’s next ninety days. Same calendar, same premise, different victim. Ninety days from this morning is December 2. Between here and there sit a Federal Reserve meeting on September 16, a midterm election on November 3, and another Fed meeting in early December. The bond article argued that the window prices a war that shows no sign of ending. This one asks what that window does to the stock market, and the honest answer is: something the index’s current price barely contemplates. ...

Net interest on the federal debt is on pace to cross $1 trillion this fiscal year, more than the Pentagon spends, a gap the Congressional Budget Office says holds every year from 2025 through 2035 (CBO, 2025). And on the CBO’s own current baseline, the boring one, no crisis, no shock, no recession assumed, debt held by the public breaks the record set in 1946 at the height of World War II by fiscal year 2030 (CBO, 2026). That’s roughly four years out. Whatever actually fixes this needs to already be running by then, not still working its way through committee. ...