The FOMC announces its rate decision at 2:00 PM ET on Wednesday, June 17, with Chair Kevin Warsh's first post-meeting press conference at 2:30 PM ET. The number itself is a near non-event — CME FedWatch put the odds of no change at roughly 97% as of June 13, which would extend the hold at 3.50%–3.75% to a fourth straight meeting.

The real action sits in the updated Summary of Economic Projections. The March median still penciled in one 25bp cut for 2026. If Warsh's committee drops that dot and pushes the next move into 2027, the dollar firms, gold weakens, and Bitcoin loses the rate-cut narrative it has been leaning on.

Markets have already done some of that work. The probability of at least one rate hike by year-end 2026 has climbed to approximately 70% on CME FedWatch, up from near zero at the start of the year. Warsh is a longtime critic of expanded central bank balance sheets, and traders will scour the press conference for any signal on faster QT or balance sheet normalization.

Four days after the largest IPO in history, SpaceX announced its first major move. SpaceX agreed to acquire AI coding startup Cursor in a $60 billion stock deal, with the transaction expected to close in the third quarter. The deal converts a $10B partnership option from April into an outright acquisition.

The stock rose roughly 14% to about $219 following the news, pushing SpaceX's valuation past $2.9 trillion. That makes it one of the largest developer-tools acquisitions on record. The strategic logic is clear: the deal is meant to help SpaceX's AI division catch up to the major AI labs after the xAI merger earlier this year ran into restructuring and content moderation controversies.

Cursor's numbers explain the price tag. Annual revenue passed $4 billion by early June, with enterprise customers accounting for roughly $2.6 billion, and one survey found the tool deployed inside 64% of Fortune 500 companies. For investors, the read-through is that the AI capex cycle now has a new corporate buyer with $75B of fresh IPO cash and a valuation big enough to absorb deals at this scale.

The June 15 ETF tape told a clear rotation story. Bitcoin spot ETFs lost $64.8 million on the day, dragged down by Grayscale's GBTC, which shed $124 million in a single session. Other Bitcoin funds absorbed about $59 million in inflows, partially offsetting the GBTC bleed.

Altcoin products went the other way entirely. Ethereum spot ETFs pulled in $22.5 million, Solana products added $2.7 million, and XRP funds attracted $2.8 million. HYPE added $17.2 million as well. Bitcoin's relief rally in ETF flows lasted just one session after snapping its prior outflow streak on Friday with an $86 million inflow.

The pattern matters for positioning into the FOMC. Institutions appear to be trimming Bitcoin exposure ahead of a potentially hawkish Warsh while still adding to altcoin baskets — a sign that the rotation is into specific narratives (ETH staking, XRP utility, Solana throughput) rather than out of crypto entirely. Watch whether GBTC outflows stabilize after the Fed decision or accelerate.

A Tuesday rotation rewrote the index leaderboard. The Dow Jones Industrial Average hit fresh all-time highs while the Nasdaq 100 dropped about 2%, with a selloff in chipmakers after a strong advance dragging down the S&P 500. The driver was the first FOMC decision under Warsh combined with another leg lower in oil.

Oil slipped below $80 on expectations for a revival in supplies, taking pressure off cyclical names and bond yields. That's a textbook rotation trade: economically sensitive Dow components catch a bid while expensive megacap tech and semis give back gains. SpaceX continued its post-IPO surge, with shares up roughly 10% on the day and the post-IPO move approaching 50% over four sessions.

The setup into today's decision is unusually clean. Tech is offside, cyclicals are at highs, and the Fed dots will tell traders which side has the next catalyst. A hawkish surprise reverses the rotation immediately — chipmakers fall further, Dow stalls. A dovish hold or a maintained 2026 cut keeps the rotation running and pulls small-caps along with it.

Snap's strategic gamble met its market verdict on Tuesday. Snap closed at $5.16, down 9.72%, as investors reacted to the launch of $2,195 SPECS augmented reality glasses and CEO Evan Spiegel's defense of heavy AR spending against activist pressure. Trading volume reached 92.2 million shares, about 84% above the three-month average.

The skepticism is structural. Snap IPO'd in 2017 and has fallen 79% since going public, and the $2,195 price point puts SPECS in a niche where Apple's Vision Pro has already struggled to find mainstream demand. Spiegel is essentially asking shareholders to keep funding hardware bets while the core advertising business stays under pressure from Meta and TikTok.

The story is worth watching as a signal on AR-hardware demand more broadly. Meta has spent tens of billions on Reality Labs with little to show for it, and Apple has quietly de-prioritized Vision Pro production. If a relatively cheap consumer-targeted AR product can't move at $2,195, the entire spatial-computing capex thesis weakens — and the activist case for Snap to refocus on advertising gets louder.

DISCLAIMER: None of this is financial advice. This newsletter is strictly educational and is not investment advice or a solicitation to buy or sell any assets or to make any financial decisions. Please be careful and do your own research.