An expected rate hike... Warsh brings more volatility... One more hike penciled in for 2026... We're 'months' away from refilling oil reserves... The bill is growing... OpenAI is looking for more pre-IPO cash... Stay away from this 'cash-burning furnace'... Whitney Tilson sees opportunity today...
Rates are headed higher again...
This afternoon, the Federal Reserve announced that it unanimously voted to raise the federal-funds rate by 25 basis points (0.25%) to a range of 3.75% to 4%.
The move was widely expected... Heading into the September meeting, federal-funds futures traders were pricing in about a 90% chance of a rate hike.
What wasn't expected, though, was that all 12 voters – including Chair Kevin Warsh – were in favor of raising interest rates.
The Fed's statement was one of few words. It summed things up by saying...
Today's policy action will support a timelier return to the Committee's 2 percent goal.
Inflation has remained above the Fed's 2% target for "more than five and a half years," according to Warsh. And based on the Fed's Summary of Economic Projections ("SEP"), the Fed doesn't see inflation falling to 2% until 2029.
Stocks initially held on to their gains after the announcement, while both gold and oil dipped.
The real fireworks started at 2:30...
That's when Warsh began his post-policy-meeting press conference. During Warsh's previous two press conferences, the S&P 500 Index fell more than 1% between the start of his statement and market close.
Today brought more volatility...
In his statement, Warsh took a "hawkish" stance on continuing to fight inflation, saying that recent inflation releases – like last week's consumer price index ("CPI") – show that underlying inflation trends haven't improved. He added that too many inflation components are running above 3%.
Those comments indicate that more hikes could be on the way if inflation doesn't come down meaningfully.
That's not what the market wants to see...
The S&P 500 fell more than 0.25% as Warsh began speaking and continued spiking higher and lower throughout the question-and-answer section. The Nasdaq Composite Index and Dow Jones Industrial Average both saw similar action. All three indexes ended the day down.
As always, the first move may not be the right one. And it will take more than a few hours of trading for Wall Street to fully parse through the Fed's statement and Warsh's comments. We expect today's news to ripple through the market for the rest of the week.
More from the SEP...
The SEP also contains the Fed's "dot plot," a snapshot of where Fed members think the fed-funds rate will end up over the next two years. After today's hike, the dots point to an additional hike in 2026, bringing the effective rate to about 4.1%. That's one more hike than the dot plot showed in June.
As for next year, the Fed is now projecting no movement in rates, versus its previous outlook for one rate cut. The Fed doesn't see itself cutting rates until 2028. Of course, these things can and will change over time.
But as we've written for months, we're in a "higher for longer" rate environment.
Here comes government demand for oil...
In an interview with Bloomberg TV on Monday, Energy Secretary Chris Wright said the Department of Energy will begin refilling the Strategic Petroleum Reserve ("SPR") "in the next few months."
In March, the SPR hit a three-and-a-half-year high of roughly 415 million barrels. But then the U.S. began releasing crude to lessen the impact of the Iran war.
As of September 4, the SPR sat at 285 million barrels – the lowest level since 1982.
Earlier this month, we wrote that the government was looking to refill the SPR with the "65 billion barrels" it agreed to receive from Venezuela.
However, there are hurdles – like Venezuela's low daily oil production. Plus, the crude needs to go through an extensive refining process before reaching the quality needed to be stored in the SPR.
Venezuelan oil or not, it's going to take a while to refill the SPR. When President Donald Trump began refilling the SPR starting in January 2025, it took 14 months to add about 20 million barrels.
And the bill to refill the tank is growing...
In March 2025, when the SPR sat at about 400 million barrels, the Department of Energy estimated that it would take about $20 billion and several years to fill the SPR to around 700 million barrels.
At that time, West Texas Intermediate crude was trading for around $70 per barrel. Of course, things are much different today...
West Texas Intermediate crude is back above $100 per barrel, and the SPR has 100 million fewer barrels of oil in it than it did in March 2025. Now, it would take $10 billion just to get back to the March 2025 level.
If the Energy Department wants to fill the SPR back up to around 700 million barrels, it would cost more than $40 billion.
That could add to the inflation problem...
As we said, oil is already at $100 per barrel. That's pushing the price of energy products like gasoline, heating oil, and electricity higher. In August's CPI inflation report, the energy component jumped more than 16% year over year – led by a 27% spike in gasoline and a 52% surge in fuel oil.
As long as oil prices stay at $100 per barrel, the inflation problem will remain tricky...
We have at least six months before the year-over-year comparisons for inflation start to account for 2026's spike in oil prices. So energy will still put upward pressure on headline inflation in the next several CPI reports.
In a post on X, "bond king" and founder of investment firm DoubleLine Jeffrey Gundlach said that "inflation is not going down anytime soon" with oil at these levels. He added that DoubleLine's models have CPI coming in at above 4% in the next report. That would put inflation at one of highest levels since 2023.
High inflation will make the Fed's job even harder.
More private funding for OpenAI...
Last week, while AI "doom" fears were at their peak, OpenAI founder Sam Altman said the AI startup won't go public this year because of AI safety concerns. He said it's an "ill-advised moment" to launch its initial public offering ("IPO").
That doesn't mean OpenAI isn't looking to raise money, though. According to the Financial Times, the startup is in early discussions with investors to raise more money as a private company.
OpenAI is reportedly going to seek funds at a $1.2 trillion valuation – a more than 40% jump from the $850 billion valuation during its March capital raise.
There's a big reason OpenAI has delayed its IPO...
As our colleague and Stansberry's Investment Advisory editor Whitney Tilson has written, OpenAI is a "cash-burning furnace."
Last year, OpenAI's expenses nearly tripled to $34 billion. The company ended up reporting a loss from operations of about $20 billion. And its financials haven't improved in 2026. As we wrote in the August 19 Digest...
In the first six months of 2026, OpenAI's losses have gotten even worse. In the first quarter, OpenAI reported an operating loss of $9.3 billion. That grew to a loss of more than $12.3 billion in the second quarter.
So OpenAI's operating losses in the first six months of this year have already surpassed all of 2025. Even while revenue has grown to $12.4 billion year to date – almost matching 2025's total – the losses continue to balloon.
In the August 24 edition of his free daily e-letter, Whitney broke down how OpenAI's financials are lagging behind competitor Anthropic.
To go public, OpenAI would have to disclose its financials in an S-1 filing. Whitney believes that once investors see OpenAI's numbers, the company will either "implode spectacularly" or completely pull its IPO plans.
In the meantime, OpenAI's chief competitor Anthropic is still planning its IPO for next month.
Whitney has a warning for other Big Tech stocks...
In a free presentation Whitney debuted last week, he warned that the Magnificent Seven – Alphabet (GOOGL), Apple (AAPL), Amazon (AMZN), Meta Platforms (META), Microsoft (MSFT), Nvidia (NVDA), and Tesla (TSLA) – have had their day in the sun. Their time as the bull market's drivers is over.
Whitney says it's time to buy a different, more obscure group of stocks instead. His new stock system – called the "Greenwich Test" – has identified a tiny group of companies that "no one is looking at." All of these stocks have doubled over the past year. But Whitney says they could hand investors 1,000% returns.
In his presentation, Whitney shared more about his strategy, along with his No. 1 stock to buy today – and one stock to stay away from.
If you haven't watched yet, we urge you to tune into the replay right here for a limited time.
New 52-week highs (as of 9/15/26): Alpha Architect 1-3 Month Box Fund (BOXX), Chord Energy (CHRD), Chevron (CVX), iMGP DBi Managed Futures Strategy Fund (DBMF), Quest Diagnostics (DGX), Dorchester Minerals (DMLP), EOG Resources (EOG), Equinor (EQNR), Hagerty (HGTY), Marathon Petroleum (MPC), Match Group (MTCH), Okta (OKTA), Valero Energy (VLO), and State Street Energy Select Sector SPDR Fund (XLE).
A quiet mailbag today, so we'll share a reminder... Our annual Stansberry Research Conference & Alliance Meeting is coming up in just two weeks! From September 28 to 30, we'll be in Las Vegas at the Aria Resort & Casino, along with our editors, analysts, friends, special invited guests, and you, our subscribers and Alliance partners.
We can't wait... This year's schedule includes incredible speakers like famed actor Henry Winkler (aka The Fonz!), highly sought-after tech expert Dan Ives, biomedical physician Dr. David Agus, bestselling authors, CEOs, entrepreneurs and innovators, and more...
You'll also hear top ideas and stock recommendations from Dr. David "Doc" Eifrig, Whitney Tilson, Brett Eversole, Eric Wade, Dan Ferris, Dave Lashmet, Greg Diamond, Gabe Marshank, Josh Baylin, Marc Chaikin, Joel Litman, and others.
In-person tickets are sold out, but if you're not going to be with us in Vegas, a Livestream Pass allows you to log in to the event right from your computer or phone. You can be "in the room" without leaving your house or office.
Click here to get a Livestream Pass right now.
As always, send your comments and questions to feedback@stansberryresearch.com.
All the best,
Nick Koziol
Baltimore, Maryland
September 16, 2026
