This old guy Powell is going to use the non-farm payroll as a trump card to flip the table tonight!

Yesterday's performance by the Federal Reserve, Powell really stopped pretending! What overall consideration of economic data? Nonsense! All he sees now is one number: the unemployment rate! How harsh is that statement? It's like pointing at the entire market and shouting: if tonight's non-farm payroll is still so damn strong, thinking about cutting rates in September? No chance! Want to drink a few more sips of easy money for the rest of this year? Dream on! This is no longer a hint; he's using the unemployment rate as a get-out-of-jail-free card, directly sealing the door on rate cuts!

At the press conference, he pretended to say some "soft talk" as a cover: Oh, consumers are slow to spend, is that little growth in GDP in the first half enough to fill the gaps? The labor market also looks weak... Bah! All of this turned into nonsense in his mouth, scattered and gone! The real knife he revealed was just one phrase, "Now! Right now! Keep an eye on the unemployment rate!" Listen to this tone, a 4.1% unemployment rate is not just a number to him, it's an impenetrable shield! It's the ultimate weapon to block all excuses for interest rate cuts!

The funny thing is, their own backyard caught fire first! Waller and Bowman, those two big shots, actually dared to publicly sing a different tune and bang the table for looseness! It's a rare sight that hasn't been seen in over thirty years! This is a real slap in the face. But that old guy Powell, despite the internal rebellion pressure, insists on holding that tattered flag of unemployment high. Why is he so arrogant?

What for? Just based on that little bit of luck and the tightened faucet! Immigration policies are tightly controlled, foreign labor can't come in, and on the surface, the job market seems to be holding up. Resignation rates, job vacancies? For now, there's no collapse. But those in the know are well aware that this "balance" is as fragile as paper! That guy Reid from the Royal Bank of Canada is spot on: labor "supply and demand are both slipping down", this balance has long been at its wit's end! And Powell? He's treating this thin layer of window paper as bulletproof steel! Truly adept at self-deception!

The old foxes in the market are not easy to fool! As soon as Powell finished speaking, Wall Street immediately turned hostile: U.S. stocks crashed down, bond yields surged up, and the dollar shot up as if it had taken medicine, while the money market directly rubbed the interest rate cut expectations into the ground! This reaction was fast, precise, and ruthless! It clearly tells Powell: we see through your thoughts completely!

Look at how bad this expectation drop is! Betting on a rate cut in September? It has now become a coin toss gamble on the positive or negative, the most "hawkish" situation in over a year! As for how many times there can be cuts this year? The market is basically lying flat and accepting it, daring to gamble once, and it has to be that kind of "just for the sake of it"! Standard Chartered's England said it more crudely: "Powell is just short of carving 'policy and unemployment rate are one and the same' on his forehead! Is the market thinking this way, is there a problem?"

His "full employment" sounds glamorous, but a closer look reveals all the pitfalls! The unemployment rate has been stuck at this "low level" of 4.0%-4.2% for over a year, and Powell dares to boldly proclaim "full employment"? What a joke! Let's peel away this shiny exterior and see what's inside: working hours are secretly shrinking, more and more people are taking gig jobs, and wages are crawling like a snail... It's not that people can't find work; it's that they can't find decent jobs that can support a family! Powell, are you blind or just willfully ignorant?

Inflation? That's another good knife he holds in his hand! He casually mentions "slightly above the 2% target," with core CPI at 2.9% and core PCE at 2.8%. Those words "slightly high"—doesn't saying it hurt? Behind it is the bitter reality of ordinary people being gradually squeezed by rising prices! Hanging over us is Trump's tariff sword! Powell claims that this thing only affects us "for a moment," but even he lacks confidence, adding, "Who the hell can guarantee that?" What if these tariffs really run wild, pushing commodity prices up all the way? What can the Federal Reserve do besides stare blankly and continue with high interest rates? Cut rates? Just wait for that! It would be a miracle if we catch a whiff of it by next year!

Looking back at the market, its face has been beaten to a pulp! Back in April, we were still dreaming of a great spring and autumn, betting on a rate cut of 130 basis points within the year. A month ago, the dream was half over, reduced to 70 basis points. And now? Only about 35 basis points left, a knee chop! What’s even more chilling is that the futures curve shows that until Powell rolls up his bedding and leaves next May, the market only dares to bet on a total cut of 65 basis points.

A chilling question has emerged: Will Powell not lower interest rates at all during his last less-than-a-year in office? Although it doesn't seem set in stone right now, who can confidently say "absolutely impossible"? When the unemployment rate has become his sacred "taboo", when inflation lingers under the shadow of tariffs, and when even those within the Federal Reserve start to flip the table...

Powell, the old man who was once regarded as the "savior" by the market, is he now huffing and puffing to dig a hole for himself, preparing to set up a "zero rate cuts during his term" disgrace pillar?

Will tonight's non-farm payroll be the last straw that breaks the back of the skinny camel of interest rate cuts? Powell, do you dare to sing this play of "sticking it out to the end" until the very last second before you pack your bags and leave?

Tonight's non-farm payrolls, are you betting on a rise or betting on Powell?