Today’s Fed Meeting Is Like A Jags Vs Bucs Super Bowl

By Peter Tchir of Academy Securities

Today’s Fed Meeting is Like a Jags vs Bucs Super Bowl

Today’s Fed Meeting is like a Super Bowl match-up where most of the country just doesn’t really care. We feel compelled to talk about it, analyze it and even watch it, because it is the “Super Bowl” after all (or in this case, yet another FOMC meeting with a Powell press conference). But does anyone really care?

Maybe we will be surprised and this meeting will turn out to be exciting, but consensus is:

• 25 bps hike.
• Data dependent: more types of data, over a longer period of time will be required to get the Fed to act.
• Possible future hikes: that will mostly be picked up by the “sticky” inflation crowd as “hawkish”.  
• Possible future cuts: They will downplay this, but the recession crowd (“which I still associate with) will cheer this.

I just don’t see today being a major market moving event compared to earnings – which is nice for a change, unless your job claim to fame is “Fed Watcher.”

What Couldn’t AI Help Me Identify a Low Rated Super Bowl Match-up?

More interesting, given the AI story and the earnings that are coming out, is why couldn’t (or wouldn’t) ChatGPT predict which match-ups for the next Super Bowl would likely have low ratings?

It seems like a relatively straightforward question. Identify factors that have contributed to low ratings in the past and make some predictions. It did mention some of those, like regional match-ups, teams without star players, etc., but these were pretty obvious to me. I went through some data on TV viewership, social media connectivity, etc. to come up with the Bus vs Jags (apologies to Bucs and Jags fans).

Some of my “work” pointed me to Bills vs Lions as being potentially low, but since that would be almost a dream match-up for me, I chose to ignore it. Cincinnati vs Cleveland seemed like another one except they are in the same division and I have a soft spot for them as well.

What I found really strange, was ChatGPT’s response to lowest rated Super Bowl.  ChatGPT “stated” that as if its last update in September 2021 the 2019 Super Bowl between the Patriots and Rams was the lowest rated. A quick Google Search comes up with the 2022 Rams vs Bengals game as being lower rated since Super Bowl III in 1969. Weird that ChatGPT doesn’t have anything post September 2021 on the subject, but stranger still, is what question did ChatGPT answer?. If Google is correct, then the 2019 wasn’t the lowest rated. So, even for what seems like a “simple” question, I got some unimpressive answers and spent more time than I would have, if I just did my own work from the start.

With that, we look to earnings.

This weekend’s potential Change in Leadership is worth reading and if you have time ahead of the Fed (and who doesn’t unless you enjoy staring at a screen and second and third guessing yourself for hours on end) you might want to watch Academy’s AI Webinar.