Episode summary
Live From Excell 2026 (FvF Special Release)
Facts vs Feelings
· · 38 min · Hosts: Ryan Detrick, Sonu Varghese · Guests: Ed Fitzpatrick
Summary
The discussion centered on why the 10-year Treasury yield was near 5% and whether the market should be pricing even higher rates. The guest argued that the yield reset reflects stronger growth, especially AI-driven investment, but said inflation expectations have remained well behaved and the Fed is mainly watching whether wages and the labor market become a renewed inflation source. The host pushed the case that nominal GDP near 8%, an ISM manufacturing price index around 78, and still-elevated commodity pressure could justify even tighter policy.
The labor market was presented as resilient rather than broken: unemployment was 4.2%, layoffs were still low, and the guest said wage growth was not running hot enough to create major inflation pressure. The conversation then moved to fixed income positioning, with the guest making the case for active management over passive bond exposure because managers can move across duration, credit, securitized debt, and individual securities.
They also discussed AI as a structural force for rates and markets. The guest said the likely outcome is a mix of productivity gains and some job displacement, while the host raised surveillance pricing as a potentially inflationary twist. They closed by arguing the bull market still has room to run, with technology and AI capex still central to the outlook.
Key takeaways
- The guest said the main driver of higher yields is a rerating of growth, not a breakdown in inflation expectations.
- The host argued the market could still be underpricing how much AI capex and supply-chain pressure keep rates elevated.
- The guest said the labor market is resilient, citing 4.2% unemployment and low layoffs as evidence against a near-term jobs problem.
- The guest made the case for active fixed income because managers can adjust duration, sector exposure, and security selection, unlike passive bond indexes.
- The host and guest both tied the bull market’s durability to technology leadership and continued AI investment.
Notable quotes
“the amount of crosscurrents in the current market are quite material”
“the market has been in a little bit of a of a discovery mode, if you will”
How the episode opens
Welcome to the Facts Versus Feelings podcast. I'm your host, Ryan Detrick, and I'm joined by my co-host, Sonu Varughese. Cutting through the noise each week with Ryan Detrick, Chief Market Strategist, and Sonu Varughese, Chief Macro Strategist, taking out the boring and helping investors focus on what really matters.
Hello everyone. Welcome to a special episode, a very special episode of Facts Versus Feelings. This is outside of our normal release.
And Ryan and I recorded this at Carson's annual get-together, our Excel conference in Denver last month. So, it's a few weeks old, but we had a very special guest join us. We had Ed Fitzpatrick from JP Morgan.
He leads their interest rates group. They manage a ton of money, trillions of dollars really, for a lot of institutional clients and even a lot of, you know, retail household clients. And we thought it would be fantastic to get his perspective.
We had a great conversation about what's happening in the bond market, how that's tied to the economy, how that's tied to the stock market, and AI especially is in large part playing a big role in what's happening at markets, stock market, bond market, all of that. We talked about all of it with Ed. I think you'll really enjoy this conversation despite the fact that it's a few weeks old.
I think it's still stands the test of time, and hope you enjoy it. Thank you.
Excel, hello. — All right. — All right. How's everybody doing? We've got a We've got a big act to follow, Sonu. — Yes. — Don't know if we can do that. That was awesome. Let's give a hand to Burton and O'Malley there.
So, Sonu, I know the crowd wants to know.
From the episode’s captions: roughly the first two minutes, lightly cleaned. Keep watching on YouTube →
Topics
- 10-year treasury yield
- fed rate hikes
- ai capex
- labor market
- active fixed income
Companies and tickers mentioned
- JPM
- Carson Group
- JPMorgan
Watch the episode
Watch “Live From Excell 2026 (FvF Special Release)” on YouTube
Summary, takeaways and quote selection by Octagon. Quotes are short excerpts; the full conversation is in the episode.
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Facts vs Feelings, this episode and its artwork belong to Carson Investment Research. Octagon is not affiliated with the show; this page is an independent summary.
