September 2026
Print this one out and read it over Labor Day weekend. Seriously – pour some coffee, sit on the porch, and give it ten minutes. It’s worth it.
Quick primer before we dive in: Jackson Hole refers to the Kansas City Fed’s annual economic policy symposium, held every August in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. It’s where the Fed chair and other central bankers, economists, and policymakers gather to talk through the economic outlook, and the chair’s speech there is closely watched as a signal of where policy is heading next. This year carried extra weight since it was Chairman Warsh’s first major speech in the role, and markets moved on it. More on that below.
The Fed, Jackson Hole, and the Case for Boring
Jackson Hole came and went a couple weeks back, and if you were hoping for fireworks from Chairman Warsh, you’re out of luck. That’s probably a good thing.
Warsh’s speech was hawkish but substantive. He recommitted to the Fed’s 2% inflation target and made clear the burden is on the data to improve before rates come down. He’s also refocusing the Fed on money supply and bank credit growth as inflation signals – something the Fed largely ignored during the pandemic-era money surge, to its own detriment.
Then this morning, the data gave him plenty to work with. August payrolls came in at 162,000 – triple the 53,000 expected, and the strongest month since March. Unemployment held at 4.1%. Normally a strong jobs number is unambiguous good news. Right now, it’s a little more complicated: in a summer where a hawkish Fed chair is looking for reasons to hold rates higher, a hot labor market is exactly the kind of data point that keeps a September hike on the table. Odds of a hike had already jumped from roughly 35% to 55% after the Jackson Hole speech – this report doesn’t make that number go down.
There’s also been friction between the Fed and the Treasury. Treasury has been leaning on longer-dated bond purchases to influence the shape of the yield curve, which prompted a pointed op-ed accusing the administration of interfering with market signals that are supposed to guide policy, not the other way around. It’s a bit like turning off the smoke detector because you don’t like the noise.
So what does this mean for you? The real question isn’t whether the Fed hikes in September. It’s whether the data give them a reason to, and this morning’s report didn’t exactly hand them an excuse to sit still. Either way, nothing changes about how your portfolio is built. The Fed’s job is to overthink every data point. Ours is to make sure your plan doesn’t hinge on guessing which way they lean next.
The Debt Number Nobody’s Arguing About
Every few years, someone posts a chart like this and both sides find a way to blame the other guy. Carter left office with $1.2 trillion in national debt. We just crossed $40 trillion.
US National Debt at End of Each Presidency, 1981–2026 (Source: Creative Planning / Charlie Bilello)
Red administrations, blue administrations – the number only moves one direction. I’m not going to pretend I have the fix, and neither party does, or we wouldn’t be here. What I will say is that “it’ll sort itself out eventually” isn’t a plan, it’s a hope, and hope is a lousy input for a financial plan.
Here’s what it actually means for you: a government carrying that much debt has fewer good options, and most of the plausible ones – higher taxes, benefit changes, more borrowing, or letting inflation quietly do the work – touch your retirement math in some way. That’s exactly why we stress-test your plan against more than one tax and inflation environment instead of betting everything on today’s rules staying put.
We’re not losing sleep over $40 trillion. But we’re not ignoring it either.
Earnings Season: The Numbers Actually Back Up the Optimism
With 97% of S&P 500 companies now reported for the quarter, 86% beat earnings estimates – the best showing since 2021. Health Care led every sector, with 98% of its companies clearing the bar. And yet, markets have been roughly flat to slightly off since a lot of that news hit.
That’s not a contradiction, it’s actually a healthy sign. Strong earnings were already priced in going into the season, so “beating expectations” doesn’t automatically mean “stocks go up.” What we’re watching instead is which sectors are leading. Right now, leadership is rotating – enterprise software bouncing back, industrials and health care picking up steam, energy cooling off after its summer run. That kind of rotation, where different parts of the market take turns leading instead of the same five stocks doing all the work, is the lifeblood of a healthy bull market. It’s a much better sign than a market where everything rises and falls together on one theme.
If the Fed Hikes, Here’s Why Your Bonds Aren’t Sweating It
The market’s been going back and forth on whether the Fed raises rates in September, and that uncertainty being priced in is exactly the environment where you don’t want to be making moves based on a guess.
Here’s why our fixed income positioning doesn’t need to flinch either way. A meaningful piece of the bond sleeve sits in floating rate and short-term instruments – bonds that reset with rates instead of getting run over by them. When rates go up, their yield goes up too. The rest of the bond exposure is intermediate term, not long, so it’s not parked in the part of the curve that gets hit hardest when rates move. Long-duration bonds are where a rate hike really stings. That’s not where we’re concentrated.
None of this means bonds are exciting. They’re not supposed to be. Their job is to be the shock absorber, and a shock absorber built to handle a hike or a hold is doing exactly what it’s there for.
Ownership Beats Saving
Three charts worth sitting with this month.
Increase Over the Last 50 Years, August 1976–August 2026 (Source: Creative Planning / Peter Mallouk)
Over the last 50 years, U.S. inflation is up 6x. Cash sitting in 3-month Treasury bills is up 8x. The S&P 500’s total return? Up 283x. That’s not a typo, and it’s not cherry-picked data – it’s five decades, start to finish. Over the long run, stocks don’t just beat inflation, they lap it.
Purchasing Power vs. S&P 500 Total Return, 1995–2025 (Source: Moment Private Wealth)
Zoom into a shorter window and the story holds. $1 in 1995 is worth 46 cents today. That same $1, invested in the S&P 500, grew to $28.61.
The Benefits of Saving Early (Source: Creative Planning / Peter Mallouk)
And here’s what that means for timing: $5,000 invested every year at a 10% return grows to over $2.2 million by age 65 if you start at 25. Start at 50 instead, and you end up with $159,000. Same discipline, same annual amount – the only difference is time.
So what does this mean for you? Cash has a job: covering short-term needs and emergencies. But long-term financial freedom comes from ownership – equities, real assets, compounding investments – not from stacking cash and hoping inflation doesn’t notice. The question isn’t “can I afford to invest?” It’s “can I afford not to?”
What’s Actually Behind Our Growth Exposure
Quick one on process. A chunk of our equity sleeve is built around a quality growth index – a systematic way of identifying companies with strong profitability, healthy balance sheets, and durable earnings growth, rather than just chasing whatever’s had momentum lately.
The idea is simple: growth investing has a reputation for meaning “expensive and unprofitable,” but it doesn’t have to. Pairing growth characteristics with quality screens – return on equity, earnings stability, low debt – tends to filter out a lot of the froth while still capturing the companies actually growing. That’s the exposure behind names like QGRW in our portfolios, and it’s a deliberate complement to our value and core holdings, not a bet on any one sector or theme.
Further Reading
What Jackson Hole Told Us About Rates – And What It Didn’t Tell Us About AI
vericrestprivatewealth.com/what-jackson-hole-told-us-about-rates-and-what-it-didnt-tell-us-about-ai
In Closing
The Phillies went 20-7 in August, the kind of stretch that makes you forget how average they looked in June. September brings a brutal schedule and a four-game set against Atlanta that could decide the division. A good month doesn’t erase the tougher stretches before it, and it doesn’t guarantee the next one goes smoothly either. That’s true of a ballclub, and it’s true of a portfolio.
Enjoy the rest of the summer,
Bill
