Thu Sep 17 2026: Fed hikes for first time in 3+ years, 10Y at 4.95%, CPI still above 3.4%, and AI chips are the only trade working — $NVDA, $SITM, $SOXX in focus.

The Fed hiked and the curve is screaming: 10Y at 4.95%, 10Y-2Y +26.4bp, 10Y-3M +87.9bp. Dow futures ripped 600 pts after the initial selloff, but Blackstone ($BX) says the yield curve is the thing to fear. Watch this. Prediction markets price 99% odds fed funds upper bound >3.75% after Oct 28, 95% odds Sept CPI >3.4%, but only 20.5% odds payrolls >125k. Fed officials unanimously ditched downside GDP risks for first time. That's stagflation-lite: inflation sticky, jobs cooling, Fed hiking. Bad signal for duration. Jensen says $NVDA will sell twice as many chips next year. If true, that's not a cycle, it's a land grab. But US chip manufacturing labor crisis has Samsung and $TSM desperate for talent — capacity is the bottleneck, not demand. $SITM +9.5% after Morgan Stanley overweight on data center demand and M&A support. $SOXX: $22B of Google ($GOOGL) TPU financing comes with a catch — read the fine print before chasing AI infra. $PLTR's real moat just got stronger, per SeekingAlpha, and

The Fed hiked and the curve is screaming: 10Y at 4.95%, 10Y-2Y +26.4bp, 10Y-3M +87.9bp. Dow futures ripped 600 pts after the initial selloff, but Blackstone ($BX) says the yield curve is the thing to