The mystery of the vanishing jobs

Summary

Podcast Summary: Unhedged

Episode: The Mystery of the Vanishing Jobs
Date: September 11, 2025
Hosts: Rob Armstrong, Aidan Reiter (Financial Times)

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Overview

In this episode, Rob Armstrong and employment market expert Aidan Reiter unpack the “mystery” behind America’s declining job creation numbers despite a still-healthy unemployment rate. They explore the reliability of labor market data in the post-COVID era, the effects of immigration crackdowns, and why mixed signals from economic indicators are making analysis especially tricky. The conversation also tackles potential bias in jobs data, the uneven recovery, and what it all means for Federal Reserve policy.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. The Paradox: Fewer Jobs, Low Unemployment

• [00:36–03:14]
  • US unemployment rate sits at 4.3%—historically low and close to “full employment.”
  • However, monthly job additions are alarmingly low: recent months averaged a mere 29,000, with at least one month of negative job growth post-revisions.
  • “A year ago, it was like 100,000 a month or something.” – Rob Armstrong [03:01]
  • Aidan emphasizes that both the initial numbers and subsequent large revisions have spooked markets.

2. Data Quality: Trusting the Numbers

• [03:14–06:12]
  • A large annual revision showed that 911,000 fewer jobs were created than initially estimated, the biggest such revision ever.
  • Growing skepticism toward Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) methods, partly due to political attacks, is noted.
  • Response rates for both business and household labor surveys are “rapidly declining”—aided by the prevalence of spam calls, shifting the challenge toward real data collection.
  • Armstrong asks if data reliability is in question.
    • “The numbers they put out are still incredibly, incredibly reliable…those revisions are reliable.” – Aidan Reiter [05:25]
    • However, initial data is getting less accurate, leading to greater revisions.

3. What’s Actually Going On? The Revision Problem

• [06:12–08:13]
  • BLS annual revisions are based on state unemployment insurance records—seen as more reliable because the unemployed are motivated to report.
  • This year’s revision, and similarly large revisions last year (818,000 jobs), are tied to modeling errors likely worsened since COVID.
  • Despite the big headline, the market didn’t react much—possibly because such volatility was expected.
  • “The annual revision is at the end of every year…This year, it was the biggest preliminary revision of all time.” – Aidan Reiter [07:04]

4. Why the Numbers Might Not Mean What We Think

• [08:30–11:50]
  • The labor supply has shrunk, partly due to stricter immigration and fewer illegal border crossings.
  • Uncertainty over how many immigrants are present—and whether they’re showing up in employment surveys—complicates analysis.
  • Armstrong muses: “It stands to reason that a smaller country would create fewer jobs for any given rate of economic growth.” [09:58]
  • The “break even” number (jobs needed per month for a healthy economy) may now be much lower—possibly even zero, according to some experts.
  • “US market investors might have to get used to a world where zero job growth is a good number.” – Wendy Edelberg, cited by Aidan [10:58]

5. Do Sluggish Numbers Signal Trouble, or a Statistical Mirage?

• [11:50–14:47]
  • Debate: Are declining job additions a genuine economic red flag, or simply a reflection of shifting demographics and measurement issues?
  • Evidence supporting a still-healthy economy:
    • Corporate profits and revenues remain strong.
    • Companies are still investing; capex is robust (notably in tech/data center spending).
    • Household balance sheets are mostly solid.
  • “It just feels like we don’t have the major components of a recession out there.” – Rob Armstrong [13:39]

6. Structural Risks: An Uneven Economy

• [15:25–17:01]
  • Big worry: Underlying economic strength might be masking severe disparity.
    • The wealthiest Americans continue to consume robustly, while those at the bottom are struggling.
    • Recent subprime lender collapse (Tricolor) signals trouble for the lower-income segment.
  • “It’s just more proof that the US economy can only be resilient because its wealthiest consumers do the lion's share of consumption…which is not necessarily a good or healthy economy.” – Aidan Reiter [16:37]

7. Fed Policy: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

• [17:01–18:46]
  • Inflation remains “warm”; CPI at 2.9–3.1% suggests ongoing price pressures.
  • The Fed faces a tough call: cut rates to support a wobbly jobs market, or stay the course to avoid reigniting inflation.
    • “It seems like they’re more okay with higher inflation going forward…but not in the high threes.” – Aidan Reiter [18:02]
  • Market expects a 25 basis point cut soon, possibly with more to follow—signaled as “dovish” easing rather than a one-off drop.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• “Less than ideal is a powerful phrase, Aidan. This is like the kind of phrase my doctor uses when he sees my blood work.” – Rob Armstrong [02:18]
• “[Job data revisions] have actually been what really moved the market.” – Aidan Reiter [02:47]
• “It is super duper hard to count how many jobs are added in the US Economy. It is a big economy.” – Aidan Reiter [03:38]
• “Maybe the underlying economic growth rate might be the same and the number of jobs created might be less.” – Rob Armstrong [10:00]
• “We do trade in vibes here at Unhedged. I think that is fine.” – Rob Armstrong [11:35]
• “Recent years, it's been trending the wrong direction” (regarding job openings vs. job seekers)—Rob Armstrong [12:58]
• “It’s a very uneven economy…one that is thriving at the high end and struggling at the low end.” – Rob Armstrong [16:09]
• “It’s just more proof that the US economy can only be resilient because its wealthiest consumers do the lion’s share of consumption.” – Aidan Reiter [16:37]

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Important Timestamps

• 00:36: Episode intro; current unemployment rate and puzzling labor market signals
• 02:08–03:14: Discussion of recent job reports and market reactions
• 04:30–05:53: Declining response rates and challenges in labor market data collection
• 06:12–08:13: The significance of annual BLS jobs data revisions
• 09:52–11:50: Shrinking labor force and the question of monthly “break even” job growth
• 12:35: JOLTS report indicates more job seekers than openings for the first time since COVID
• 13:07–14:47: Reasons the overall economy still looks solid (strong profits, capex, household health)
• 15:25–17:01: The increasing unevenness of the recovery and its risks
• 17:49–18:46: Fed policy outlook in light of mixed signals and sticky inflation

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Tone and Style

The conversation is smart, informal, and occasionally self-deprecating—trading in economic “vibes” as much as data, with regular asides and banter. Armstrong and Reiter balance technical analysis with relatable analogies and a touch of dry wit, aiming to make complex labor market dynamics accessible and engaging.

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Final Takeaways

• The US labor market is undeniably weaker in terms of job creation, but context matters: data limitations, a shrinking labor pool, and population uncertainties muddy the interpretation.
• While headline numbers suggest trouble, strong corporate and household finances, plus continued business investment, contrast with historical recession patterns.
• Economic strength is not being evenly shared; lower-income Americans are increasingly at risk as the high-end consumer drives resilience.
• Federal Reserve policy decisions remain delicately poised between taming inflation and supporting a murky, possibly bifurcated jobs market.

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For those who missed the episode:
This conversation captures the contradictions and uncertainties shaping the US jobs debate in fall 2025—where looking past the headline numbers is essential to grasp whether trouble truly lies ahead.

Transcript

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[Rob Armstrong]

Pushkin the unemployment rate in the United States is 4.3%, and that is a pretty good number. It's lower than the historical average and it's not a million miles from what economists call full employment. Unfortunately, there is another signal coming from the labor market, which we don't like. The economy is creating fewer jobs every month. Today on the show, what is the message from the labor market? And in particular, are we in trouble right now? This is Unhedged, the markets and finance podcast from the Financial Times in Pushkin. I am Rob Armstrong and I'm coming to you from a crisp glitter entering an autumnal New York City, where I am joined by the Unhedged newsletter's expert on the employment market in America, Aidan Reiter. Aidan, welcome to the show.

[Aidan Reiter]

Thanks for having me.

[Rob Armstrong]

So we have sort of two separate issues to talk about. One is that the monthly job numbers are sluggish. Kind of last three, four months we've seen additions of in the low tens of thousands. And then we got this whopping annual revision to the last year's worth of numbers. So there's a lot of kind of tricky stuff going on here. Let's start with the monthly numbers. What are we learning there?

[Aidan Reiter]

Yeah, so we've gotten some less than ideal monthly job reports in the last two months. So in July, things came way under expectations. The market had a proper freakout.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Rob Armstrong]

Less than ideal is a powerful phrase, Aiden. This is like the kind of phrase my doctor uses when he sees my blood work. Like your cholesterol is less than ideal.

[Aidan Reiter]

Well, I think it's intentionally vague here as it is there. Okay. Because maybe like your doctor, we have no idea what's going on.

[Rob Armstrong]

Okay, good. But anyway, the numbers, the numbers are not what we want to see.

[Aidan Reiter]

They're not what we want to see. And especially this past month in August, we got a very low report that was 22,000. And on top of those, every time you get a monthly job report, you also get revisions for the two months prior.

[Rob Armstrong]

Right.

[Aidan Reiter]

And those revisions have actually been what really moved the market.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

So now with the revision. So that's the most recent estimates we have. The average has been 29,000 jobs added over the last three months.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yeah.

[Aidan Reiter]

Which is astonishingly low.

[Rob Armstrong]

A year ago, it was like 100,000amonth or something.

[Aidan Reiter]

150. 160. Within the two hundreds.

[Rob Armstrong]

It's a big slowdown in jobs.

[Aidan Reiter]

It's a big slowdown. And actually this revision showed that in the past three months, at one point, we actually had negative job growth. I mean.

[Rob Armstrong]

Yes, the job market shrink actually shrank.

[Aidan Reiter]

Yes. And that was post revision, though it didn't look that way when it first.

[Rob Armstrong]

When it first came out. And then. Tell us about this big annual revision. What is that? I think I find that kind of confusing.

[Aidan Reiter]

Yeah. So it's important to remember in this broader context. Right. So Trump has attacked the Bureau of Labor Statistics, said these numbers are faked. They're. You know, these revisions are too big and sparked a lot of concern.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yeah.

[Aidan Reiter]

The reality is it is super duper hard to count how many jobs are added in the US Economy. It is a big economy.

[Rob Armstrong]

It's a big country. 300 million people or whatever in our country. And you're trying to figure out who has jobs and who doesn't.

[Aidan Reiter]

350. And actually, we don't even know how many people, really. That's a whole other conversation we'll get into. But the point is, it's very hard to do. The way they do this is with really clever statistics. Right. And clever modeling. You have two big surveys. There's a current population survey, which is how you find the unemployment rate, and that is 60,000 households.

[Rob Armstrong]

You call, call people your individuals.

[Aidan Reiter]

Then there's the current employment survey, which is, you know, you call offices, companies, some companies required to report, etc. What you need to do when able to do that is chase down these numbers. Right. You get people to answer the phone, give you the numbers, and on top of that, you have to cleverly impute the areas where you're missing people answering the phone.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

Both those things require a ton of resources.

[Rob Armstrong]

Right.

[Aidan Reiter]

Unfortunately, with our era of smartphones and spam calls, et cetera, the response rate has been just rapidly declining over the last five years, especially, and even 20.

[Rob Armstrong]

Years before, hard to get people on the phone. Now, is that true for the household survey as well as the business survey?

[Aidan Reiter]

Both of them are falling. Both the response rates are falling.

[Rob Armstrong]

I think you could get the businesses on the phone at least.

[Aidan Reiter]

It's hard.

[Rob Armstrong]

It's hard.

[Aidan Reiter]

I know. Everybody has a thousand spam calls, calls a day.

[Rob Armstrong]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

You really want them to respond. Everybody has a thousand emails. Like, it's hard to get people on.

[Rob Armstrong]

The phone is what you're saying here that what we're looking at in this slowdown in job creation, might we be looking at a data error here?

[Aidan Reiter]

That's not necessarily what I'm saying. What I'm saying is there has been this attack on the data bureaus of the United States. In reality, they actually do face real issues. Right. They actually have seen their budgets decrease over time as this issue has gone up.

[Rob Armstrong]

Right.

[Aidan Reiter]

But at the same time, the numbers they put out are still incredibly, incredibly reliable. The difference is the first time you get that number, it's not that timely. It's always an estimate. There's always going to be revisions going back, and those revisions are reliable. The reality is, though, as you get worse and worse data up front. Right. Few people answering the phone, less resources to track them down, those revisions have just gotten larger over time.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

And that's what's been frustrating people.

[Rob Armstrong]

So the final numbers are still pretty reliable.

[Aidan Reiter]

Everything's very.

[Rob Armstrong]

But the revisions are growing. The revision means our first cut of the data isn't that good, but we get there in the end.

[Aidan Reiter]

I guess that's kind of the picture. I mean, one could argue we're not getting there in the end because this is a very difficult labor market. But for all intents and purposes, as you look at us compared to our pure economies, our data is still very, very good.

[Rob Armstrong]

So if that is true, Aidan, and here I'm looking at a chart going back a couple of years of jobs being added, and the chart is going kind of and to the right. Can we now feel pretty confident that the US Jobs market is getting worse?

[Aidan Reiter]

Yes and no. So let's start with the revision you asked about before. Right.

[Rob Armstrong]

The big one.

[Aidan Reiter]

The big one. We just got the annual revision. The annual revision is at the end of every year. You get states unemployment insurance records, and those are much more reliable because people who are unemployed, they want the insurance, they go, et cetera.

[Rob Armstrong]

You may not pick up the phone, but you're damn sure gonna try to get your unemployment check.

[Aidan Reiter]

Absolutely. So we get them later on than we get the original jobs data. Every August, there was a revision for the job numbers from the previous March to the march before. Right. So we just got revisions from March 2024 to March 2025.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

And it was the biggest preliminary revision of all time. It was a 911,000 jobs. Fewer were added than we originally thought. Interestingly, the market didn't really freak out on this.

[Rob Armstrong]

It was interesting. I thought when I first saw that 900,000 plus number, I was like, oh boy, here we go. And then nothing kind of happened. It was strange.

[Aidan Reiter]

Yeah. And I think there's three reasons for that. The first is last year we also had a really big Revision. It was 818,000 jobs. That's huge. The reason it happened is this issue with how the modeling is done. We have to get too far into the details. It seems to be the same issue that happened this year. Again, people just knew that was going to be a big issue this year. There was going to be a big revision.

[Rob Armstrong]

Got it.

[Aidan Reiter]

Those numbers have been awry since COVID for a couple of reasons. The second is the labor data is already looking bad. Right. As we just said, the job market's slowing already. This doesn't change the picture that much.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

The third is every year this was just the preliminary revision. It tends to be revised up.

[Rob Armstrong]

So it goes down and then it comes back up again.

[Aidan Reiter]

Exactly. So people expect it to come up. And then the final piece is those numbers were March 2024 to March 2025. That's the Biden administration and then the pre tariff Trump administration. So it's just a very different world. It's very hard to extrapolate between the two periods.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Rob Armstrong]

Dinosaurs walked the earth.

[Aidan Reiter]

Exactly.

[Rob Armstrong]

Back in back then. So we have a picture now where a weakening job market, meaning less job creation specifically, is coming into clearer and clearer focus over time.

[Aidan Reiter]

Absolutely.

[Rob Armstrong]

Is that evidence that the labor market is faltering or. There are other things we need to keep in mind here.

[Aidan Reiter]

That's where it gets really tricky. So on its surface, that definitely shows a labor market faltering. Right. Unemployment rate ticking up, job growth ticking.

[Rob Armstrong]

Down, and that generally means the economy is poor.

[Aidan Reiter]

Yes. And that is why people have moved so adamantly for the Fed to cut rates soon.

[Rob Armstrong]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

But there's a few things that are not totally normal about the current moment we're in. The first we should talk about is the supply of labor. Right. So we've had this huge crackdown in immigration. It is very hard to tell how many immigrants are in the United States and working in the United States partially because they don't answer the phone as much. Theoretically. Right.

[Rob Armstrong]

They probably answer the phone even less than normal people because they're worried about who they're talking to at the other end of the line in this political environment.

[Aidan Reiter]

Exactly.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yeah.

[Aidan Reiter]

That's conjecture. We don't really know. But the point is like we.

[Rob Armstrong]

Stands to reason.

[Aidan Reiter]

It stands to reason. So. And you know, there has been a very remarkable measured slowdown of illegal crossings at the Southern Border. And then a lot of anecdotal evidence that some people have left either because they were deported or they just don't want to deal with this political environment. So we assume that the labor force has shrank a little bit. That means the break even number. So the amount of jobs you need each month to feed a healthy economy is probably way lower than it used to be.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

So that makes it hard to make sense of are these numbers good or are these numbers bad?

[Rob Armstrong]

So is it too much of a simplification to say it's a smaller country now than it was, population wise, than it was a couple of months ago, and it stands to reason that a smaller country would create fewer jobs for any given rate of economic growth. So the kind of underlying economic growth rate might be the same and the number of jobs created might be less.

[Aidan Reiter]

Exactly right. That is totally the right way to think of this. We just don't know how many new jobs is that new break even rate.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

Because it's really hard to tell how many people are in the US Economy and how many of those people are working and looking for jobs and looking for legal or illegal jobs, et cetera, et cetera.

[Rob Armstrong]

You know a lot about this. I'm going to force you to guess. Give me what you think is the break even Job creation number, monthly job creation number, and your margin for error around that number. Oh, I'm putting you on the spot. No one wants to answer that question, which is why it's fun for me to ask you.

[Aidan Reiter]

Oh, it is a really hard question. I'll start by saying I spoke with somebody who studies this very extensively, Wendy Edelberg at the Brookings Institution, and she said that the US Market investors might have to get used to a world where zero job growth is a good number. I'm not saying that yet.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

I'll say probably somewhere in the like 20 to 50 range. Right. Somewhere. I'll say like 35 of the 15,000, give or take.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

[Rob Armstrong]

And so we're only a little bit shy of that level.

[Aidan Reiter]

Yeah. And I don't know I said that fully on vibes, but we do, we.

[Rob Armstrong]

Do trade in vibes here at unhedged. I think that is fine.

[Aidan Reiter]

Yeah. So it's really hard to tell how many jobs that you need to add every month because these numbers, not only the BLS numbers we talked about before, but, you know, the population immigration numbers, are just really hard to understand.

[Rob Armstrong]

So what's your gut feeling? I have gut feelings about this too, actually. Let's call Them semi gut feelings because they are informed by some data and some study of the economy. But what is your feeling? Is the jobs picture telling us that the economy itself is slowing, that activity levels are slowing in the country?

[Aidan Reiter]

Again, the number of jobs added each month falling definitely suggests that things are worse than they were. Right. That's undisputed. But I think there's other questions we need to ask. Such as how many new jobs are being created that people just haven't filled yet. Right. So is there new labor demand on top of this? Yes, and we're getting mixed signals. There's. We recently got the jolts report which showed for the first time since COVID there are more people looking for jobs than there are new jobs available.

[Rob Armstrong]

And for our less nerdy listeners at home, the jolt survey is the job openings and labor turnover survey.

[Aidan Reiter]

Yeah, that's a really bad sign.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

But if you look at the, you know, labor demand.

[Rob Armstrong]

Well, I would say it's really bad. Like a ratio of about one for that number is historically not that bad. But it's worse than it has been in recent months.

[Aidan Reiter]

Yes, it's worse than has been in recent years.

[Rob Armstrong]

Trending the wrong direction.

[Aidan Reiter]

But you know, other indicators of job demand and job growth are like around sideways. They're not too bad. So it's really hard to tell what's at fault here.

[Rob Armstrong]

Yeah, I want to throw out some things that make me feel good about the picture. Corporate revenues and corporate profits look okay. Yeah, they're still growing. It's hard to screech into a major unemployment event, a recession or whatever you want to call it when profits and sales in corporate America are pretty good. Growth of those things are pretty good. And they are pretty good. Companies are investing. Capex is pretty good. And the balance sheets of corporations are pretty good. They're not super over leveraged, so they're not at the first sign of trouble, they won't have to fire people.

[Aidan Reiter]

Same thing with households.

[Rob Armstrong]

Yeah, same thing. And the households are pretty good too. So the. That will keep household demand up. So it just feels like we don't have the major components of a recession out there, which would be profits and sales at companies falling year over year. You'd see capex falling through the floor. It's sort of doing the opposite, actually.

[Aidan Reiter]

Yeah, definitely spurred up by chips and you know, data centers.

[Rob Armstrong]

Yeah, data centers. But there's other kinds of capex out there. So it's like the things you would be looking for an economy that was really going through the floor. I just don't see them out there. So that makes me feel like the jobs numbers maybe are worse than the underlying economy in some way. As weird a thing is that to say, like you might ask, what is the point of an economy if not to employ people? But like I'm just not seeing the really ominous, terrible stuff out there.

[Aidan Reiter]

Yeah, I think that's very fair. It is also worth looking at the inflation numbers. Right. So we just got CPI this morning. It came in hot, right? 2.9, 3.1 core. That's pretty hot.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

If that is not all from tariffs and it doesn't seem like it all seems to be a tariff passover. That's because people are buying goods.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

And spending on money. That suggests a hot economy.

[Rob Armstrong]

Yeah, not a cold one.

[Aidan Reiter]

Exactly. That did come in around expectations. So it's not like we overshot in any meaningful way, but it's just a different situation. Right. We're not necessarily in obviously a slowdown. You just have this really murky labor market that the Fed and the market has to sort through.

[Rob Armstrong]

I was playing devil's advocate on one side, on the good side. Now I'm going to play it on the bad side. The thing that I worry about with the economy that would kind of stitch some of these divergent points we've made together is that it's a very uneven economy.

[Aidan Reiter]

Extremely.

[Rob Armstrong]

So we know that households close to the bottom of the income and wealth scales are performing very differently than households towards the top and that the top is contributing a lot of the demand in this economy. And I was spooked earlier this week when a subprime auto lender went bust. This thing called tricolor. Tricolor, I don't know how to pronounce it.

[Aidan Reiter]

Three colors.

[Rob Armstrong]

Three colors. And you know, it loans money to people with iffy credit to buy cars. And it went bust. And so I wonder if part of what we are seeing in a jobs market that doesn't look that great, but an overall economy that looks solid is a very uneven economy, one that is thriving at the high end and struggling at the low end.

[Aidan Reiter]

I think you could argue that that's been the case for the past five years. I mean, we've talked a lot about the K shaped economy for a long time. And if that is the case now, it's just more proof that the US economy can only be resilient because its wealthiest consumers do the lion's share of consumption. And you know, that's not necessarily a good economy, a healthy economy, because when those people start not spending and that could happen at any point, then you're really, really in trouble.

[Rob Armstrong]

In the last few minutes, Aidan, we've sketched rather complicated picture. There are serious question marks around the jobs market, but it does appear to be weakening at the same time. The overall economy, or the aggregate economy if you will, looks okay on many of the measures we use, but we're worried that it might be very uneven, that the distribution might be putting us in a dangerous position. And finally, inflation is kind of warm. This demands that we ask what is the Fed to do here? If you were the chair of the Fed, Aidan, a job for which I think you would be eminently qualified. Sue Kind, what would you do here? What do they need to do given this complex data?

[Aidan Reiter]

I mean, it's really, really hard to tell. Right. The Fed is really loathe to kick off inflation again after fighting it down for years and still not fully stable.

[Rob Armstrong]

And not getting all the way there. 2% target. We're banging around 33 plus percent here.

[Aidan Reiter]

Y last Fed statement which came out of Jackson Hole. It seems like they're more okay with higher inflation going forward.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

So they might be able to margin, but at the margin, not in the high threes.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yeah.

[Aidan Reiter]

So it's really, really hard to say. But what the picture has not changed really since Chair Powell said on Jackson Hole that signs are pointing towards a cut. Really?

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Aidan Reiter]

He didn't say it outright, but he heavily suggested.

[Rob Armstrong]

Right, so we're going to get a cut. I think we're all pretty confident we're going to get.

[Aidan Reiter]

The market is still very confident even after today's hot CPI. It's pricing in as a higher than 25 basis point cut.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yeah.

[Rob Armstrong]

So there's a little chance of a 50 in there.

[Aidan Reiter]

Yeah, there's some people still betting on the 50.

[Rob Armstrong]

Right. But I think my guess is we get 25. But a dovish 25 where they signal that it is not the end of the cutting or anything, which is not.

[Aidan Reiter]

What the market thinks right now. The market right now expects there to be cuts of 25 in each of the successive meetings this year. So October and December as well as.

[Rob Armstrong]

September listeners, we'll be right back with Long and Short Foreign.

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[Aidan Reiter]

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[Rob Armstrong]

Listeners, welcome back. This is long and short, the portion of the show where we go long things we like and short things we don't like. Aidan, are you long or short something?

[Aidan Reiter]

It's not that I'm long Larry Ellison being the richest man in the world. I'm just long Elon Musk no longer being.

[Rob Armstrong]

So that means you're kind of against greed, but it's like envy means something. No, I don't.

[Aidan Reiter]

I don't have a strong feeling of any way towards Larry Ellison. I just think it is kind of funny.

[Interjector/Producer]

Yes.

[Rob Armstrong]

Yeah, I don't know how the vibes are over at muskworld headquarters. Changing tack quite seriously, I am long tweed. Today was the first day I wore a tweed jacket. This fall, tweed is my favorite material and it was great to put it on. Although I'll tell you this, Aidan, I caught a glimpse of myself in a shop window walking to work and I said, who is that old high school English teacher I see there? But you know, maybe that's the look I'm going for.

[Aidan Reiter]

In another life, that really could have happened.

[Rob Armstrong]

Listeners, we'll be back in your feed next week. Until then, stay sharp out there. Unhedged is produced by Trina Menino and edited by Bryant Urstadt. Our executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Topher forges is the FT's acting co head of Audio. Special thanks to Laura Clark, Alistair Mackey, Greta Cohn and Natalie Sadler. FT Premium subscribers can get the Unhedged newsletter for free. A 30 day free trial is available to everyone else. Just go to ft.com unedged offer I'm Rob Armstrong. Thanks for listening.