So much for the blank piece of paper.

Kevin Warsh took the podium at the Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium Friday morning and delivered a keynote titled “In Our Time,” and it did not sound like a Fed chair still figuring out what he thinks. “Inflation is running above our 2 percent target,” he said. “The Fed’s predominant focus right now should be on prices.” This site covered the run-up to this speech Monday, noting that Warsh had called the address a “blank piece of paper” back on July 29 and that markets shouldn’t treat it as a scheduled tiebreaker for the Sept. 16 FOMC decision. Four days later, markets treated it as exactly that.

Fed funds futures moved within minutes. September rate-hike odds jumped to roughly 56%, per CME FedWatch — up from the 30-32% range this site cited last week. CNBC framed the September decision as “now a coin flip,” noting that odds the Fed holds steady had sat near 70% before Warsh spoke. That’s not a drift. That’s a 24-point swing triggered by one 20-minute speech from a man who, three weeks earlier, told reporters he hadn’t started writing it.

Quick Take: Where Things Stand After the Speech

Question	Answer
What did Warsh actually say?	Inflation is “still too high”; the Fed’s “predominant focus right now should be on prices”
September hike odds now (CME FedWatch)	~56%, as of the hours after the speech
Odds before the speech	30-32%, per this site’s Aug. 24 preview
Did he give explicit forward guidance?	No — he argued forward guidance “risks creating ambiguity in the name of clarity”
Days until the Sept. 16 FOMC decision	Under three weeks
Is this the first big swing in this number this month?	No — the third. Aug. 6 oil shock pushed odds to ~82%; a weak jobs report knocked them to the 30s
Should you restructure your CD strategy around this one speech?	Not entirely — but it’s worth shortening your terms. See below

What Warsh Actually Said

The hawkish tell wasn’t one line — it was the gap between this speech and his last public comments. At the July 29 press conference, Warsh called Jackson Hole “a blank piece of paper” and said he wanted to “frame the big questions” rather than preview near-term policy. On Friday, the questions got a lot less big-picture.

He acknowledged the recent inflation data looked better than expected, then undercut it in the same breath: those readings, he said, “do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved.” He recommitted to the Fed’s 2% PCE target as “a firm, fixed target,” not an aspiration. And he was explicit that getting there is the job right now, not a side project to the Fed’s other mandates.

He didn’t say “we’re hiking in September.” He didn’t say the opposite either. What he did was argue against ever saying it in the way markets want. Forward guidance, he said, “risks creating ambiguity in the name of clarity,” and committing to an explicit reaction function works “better in theory than in practice, better in the lab than in the field” — his knowledge, he said, “just doesn’t extend that far.” That’s a Fed chair explaining why he won’t hand traders a formula. Traders priced in a formula anyway.

Why the Number Moved 24 Points on a Speech With No Explicit Signal

This is the part worth sitting with, because it’s the same dynamic this site flagged before the speech happened: Warsh can refuse to give guidance and still move the odds number, because markets don’t actually need a rate call. They need a tone, and tone is exactly what a “predominant focus on prices” line delivers.

A few things compounded it:

1. The words replaced a softer framing. “Blank piece of paper” reads as undecided. “Predominant focus” reads as a priority ranking, and priority rankings are the closest thing to guidance a rules-averse Fed chair is willing to give.
2. It’s his first Jackson Hole as chair. Markets still don’t have a baseline for how Warsh talks when he means to signal something versus when he’s just describing the economy. Every phrase gets over-weighted while that calibration is still happening.
3. The runway to Sept. 16 is short. Under three weeks between the speech and the decision doesn’t leave much room for the market to talk itself out of a read it’s already priced in.
4. This number was already primed to move. A figure that swung from 82% to the low 30s twice in six weeks doesn’t need a strong nudge — it needs a plausible one.

None of that means a hike is now the base case. Fifty-six percent is a coin flip, not a certainty, and CME FedWatch odds have proven this month that they can round-trip 25-plus points inside a week. What it means is that the market’s read on Warsh just flipped from “cautious, no tell” to “leaning hawkish,” and that read is what’s setting CD and savings rates between now and the meeting.

The Third Big Swing in a Month

If you’ve been following this story, the pattern by now should look familiar:

• Aug. 6: This site’s original CD-strategy post cited hike odds near 82%, on an Iran-linked oil shock.
• Aug. 7: A weak July jobs report — payrolls down 23,000, plus 103,000 in downward revisions — knocked odds to 44.4% in a single session, sliding into the 31-40% range over the following week.
• Aug. 24: This site’s Jackson Hole preview cited odds holding around 30-32%, with Warsh publicly downplaying the speech’s importance.
• Aug. 28: The speech happens. Odds jump to roughly 56% within minutes.

Three swings, each one 24 points or more, inside about three weeks. Two were driven by hard data — a jobs report, an oil shock. This one was driven by word choice from a man who told reporters a month earlier he hadn’t decided what to say. That’s the actual story here, more than the 56% figure itself: the number that’s supposed to tell you what the Fed will do keeps telling you something different every time somebody with a microphone stands near a podium.

Should You Lock In a CD Now After Warsh’s Speech?

Short answer: this changes the odds, not the strategy. Here’s the decision framework, updated from Monday’s post:

1. Don’t treat 56% as a hike forecast. It’s a coin flip on a number that’s already proven it can swing 25-plus points on a single data point twice this month. Betting your CD term on it being right is the same mistake as trusting the 82% reading on Aug. 6 would have been.
2. Shorten your terms if you’re placing new money now. Good CD rates are still running roughly 4.00% to 4.50% APY depending on term. A 6- to 12-month CD or a rung in a T-bill ladder keeps you close enough to Sept. 16 that today’s odds swing doesn’t lock you out of whatever the meeting actually delivers.
3. If you already locked a rate, you’re fine. A CD you opened last week is paying exactly what it said it would pay. Locking a rate isn’t a bet on reading Warsh correctly — it’s a bet on a number you already know, and that logic didn’t change because his tone did.
4. Keep near-term cash liquid rather than parked on a guess. A high-yield savings account lets you react to the actual Sept. 16 decision instead of a speech that, by Warsh’s own account, wasn’t supposed to be a preview.
5. Watch the data that actually moves this number, not just the speeches. The August jobs report and August CPI print both land before the meeting, and either one could swing odds as hard as Warsh’s remarks just did.

CME FedWatch is a CME Group tool that converts fed funds futures pricing into an implied probability for the Fed’s next rate move — it’s the industry-standard way to gauge market expectations ahead of an FOMC meeting, though as this month has shown, the implied number can move sharply on a single data point or speech.

What Happens Before Sept. 16

Warsh’s speech wasn’t the last input. It’s one of several, and the market reaction it produced tells you how much weight traders are ready to put on the next ones:

• The August jobs report, due in early September. Another soft print, on top of July’s, would argue against the hawkish read Friday’s speech produced. A rebound reinforces it.
• The August CPI report. Warsh explicitly said the recent “better than expected” inflation data didn’t convince him underlying trends have improved — which means a hot core print would matter more than anything else between now and the meeting.
• Any further Fed commentary before the pre-meeting blackout period. Other Fed officials speaking in the coming days could either reinforce Warsh’s tone or muddy it, the way Friday’s speech itself reinterpreted his own July 29 framing.

The Bottom Line

Warsh spent July telling reporters Jackson Hole was a blank page. He spent Friday morning filling it in with language about inflation being too high and prices being the Fed’s “predominant focus” — sharper than anything he’d said publicly before, delivered at the one venue guaranteed to get every word parsed. Markets didn’t wait for confirmation. They repriced September hike odds from roughly 30% to roughly 56% before the speech was even over.

That’s useful information. It’s not a green light to overhaul your savings strategy around one data point in a month that’s already produced two others just like it. The framework from Monday’s preview still holds: favor 6- to 12-month CD terms for new money, keep near-term cash liquid, and re-check the actual odds close to Sept. 16 rather than trusting whatever the market decided a speech meant on the day it happened. This is the third time in a month this number has moved more than 20 points. It probably won’t be the last time before the meeting.

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Warsh’s Aug. 28, 2026 Jackson Hole quotes from the Federal Reserve’s official speech transcript, “In Our Time.” Market-odds reaction and the “coin flip” framing from CNBC. Additional speech coverage corroborated by NPR and Forbes. September odds history from this site’s prior coverage and the CME FedWatch Tool. Odds are current as of the hours following the Aug. 28 speech and can move quickly — verify before acting. This isn’t financial advice.