The Fed hiked as expected, and Warsh's press conference is what moved stocks

The FOMC voted 12-0 to raise the target range to 3.75-4.00%, the first hike since July 2023. The Fed's own statement: "Inflation remains elevated," while "economic activity is expanding at a solid pace." The 10-year eased to about 4.95% right after the 2pm announcement — a hike everyone expected isn't news — before rising back to close at 5.01%, up 1bp, as Chair Warsh's tone during the press conference read hawkish: coverage of the new projections has 16 of 18 officials seeing another hike this year, with futures now pricing two more by year-end. Equities fell through the afternoon: the Dow down 1.21% (more than 600 points), the S&P 0.45%, the Nasdaq 100 roughly flat.

August retail sales rose 1.2% to $773.9bn against roughly 0.8% consensus, and July was revised better, to -0.5% from -0.6%. Up 6.0% from a year ago. A resilient consumer landed the same morning the Fed signaled more hikes than the market had been pricing in.

WTI settled near $102.4, Brent near $105.8. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told CNBC the Saudi pipeline outage is "a brief and temporary interruption... measured in days" — directly against yesterday's AP-sourced estimate of three to five weeks, and a separate analyst's months-long call based on satellite imagery of the damage. A surprise API build of 7.14 million barrels, against a forecast 1.8 million-barrel draw, added to the pullback.

Down 4.90% to $85.59, after Tuesday's unexplained 13.6% pop that yesterday's recap said was the kind of move that "tends to hand itself back" when nothing dated the day explains it. Qorvo fell 3.46%, Qualcomm 1.58%.