The Julia La Roche Show · Saturday, September 12, 2026
Chris Whalen notes that the Federal Reserve's buyback strategy has been insignificant in impacting the market. He observes that long-term yields are rising independently of the Fed, yet there remains strong investor demand for debt, leading to tightening spreads for corporate debt, commercial real estate, and mortgages.
“Chairman Walsh has indicated he has no interest in getting the Fed back into the quantitative easing game. And now, you know, the market has its own, you know, it's looking at what the Fed is doing. But, you know, the market, as it stands on its own, without any input from the Fed, is taking long-term yields up.”
“And what's interesting is that there's still a lot of demand for paper, on the part of investors. So, spreads between things like corporate debt, commercial real estate, mortgages, that sort of thing have actually been tightening. So, even though the absolute interest rates are rising, they're going the other way. We're not getting the expected downside.”