What to look for in Kevin Warsh’s first Fed meeting

Today, as I write this article, oil prices are at $75.80, which is a big deal because tomorrow the Federal Reserve will announce its monetary policy under new Fed Chair Kevin Warsh. For many months, Federal Reserve hawks have said that the Iran conflict was a major reason they’ve been more hawkis as energy inflation can make the current inflation data much worse going forward. Warsh has said that the housing market needs help and today’s housing starts data did have an epic miss. So what is the most important thing to watch tomorrow when it comes to housing? 

For the housing market, the most important thing is for Warsh to convince the hawks to be patient. The housing market has held up well this year, thanks to mortgage spreads, which have improved over the past few years and are now almost back to normal. They have kept mortgage rates from going above 7%, a level in the past few years that drove demand lower.

Warsh vs the hawks

Obviously, Warsh was brought in by President Trump to cut rates because Jerome Powell wasn’t doing it fast enough. The Federal Reserve, before the year started, was on course for at least two, maybe three more rate cuts in this rate-cut cycle, and then the conflict with Iran started.

Inflation data worsened before the conflict, and then it lasted over 100 days, pushing oil prices above $100 at one point. This is not the environment for rate cuts, and even Kevin Warsh knows this.

Of course, things are much different with oil prices where they are today below $80. We had oil trading between $67-$82 before, without the Fed ever saying they needed to be more hawkish because of oil prices. This is the most important variable for rate hikes or a pause for the rest of 2026.

The hawks lost their oil trade, and if they’re honest about their take, they need to change their tune about oil. Some despise President Trump and Kevin Warsh; however, they shouldn’t make policy around their personal feelings.

For tomorrow and for the rest of the year, the only job Warsh can do now until inflation cools down, is to get the Fed hawks to shut up about rate hikes. We had two to three rate cuts working their way through in 2026 due to a soft labor market in 2025, but that has changed amid rising inflation.

So, Kevin needs to not get into a rate-cut fight now, but just prevent the hawks from talking about another rate hike cycle. For this to work, the growth rate of inflation needs to come back down; it’s simply too hot now for hawks to stay quiet. The best he can do is buy some time and wait for the inflation data to improve.

Warsh is going to try to make the Federal Reserve quieter, probably killing the Fed dot plot and maybe making a rule that Fed governors can’t talk about their personal monetary policy choices at events, which I think will be very hard in this day and age of social media. But since 65%-75% of where mortgage rates and the 10-year yield can go is still Fed policy, Warsh needs to try to convince the Fed governors to wait before talking about another rate-hike cycle.

As you can see with the charts above and below, Fed policy really matters for what I call the slow dance between the 10-year yield and the 30-year mortgage. Cue the Jodeci music.

Conclusion

2026 has had a lot of crazy events and it’s not even the halfway point, but the housing market has held up well under the circumstances. As our Housing Market Tracker articles have shown, the last three weeks have seen positive year-over-year growth with three weeks of negative year-over-year inventory growth. 

Housing starts to fade when mortgage rates get above 7% and mortgage spreads widen, creating more rate volatility. Today we are closer to 6.50% than 7% and Warsh’s first job is to try to convince people who are already suspicious of him to show patience, for now. That’s the only fight he should focus on tomorrow.