Jackson Hole in One Sentence: Get Ready for September: A handful of words from Chair Warsh flipped rate-hike odds overnight. Not everyone thinks the data backs him up.

If July was about tone catching markets off guard, August was about markets finally listening closely enough to react in advance. At the Fed's annual Jackson Hole symposium on August 28, Chair Warsh delivered a keynote that investors read as a clear signal he was open to an actual rate hike — not just a pause — at the September meeting. Before the speech, markets had priced in little chance of a hike before December. After it, the odds of a September move jumped sharply.

Not everyone was convinced the underlying data supported the pivot. Strategists pointed out that recent employment figures showed less economic momentum than Warsh's rhetoric implied, and that a premature hike risked being a policy mistake rather than a necessary correction. That tension — a hawkish Fed chair against a labor market that isn't obviously overheating — is the defining question heading into fall.

Our read: whether or not the hike is the "right" call is a debate for economists. For portfolio construction, what matters is that Warsh has now demonstrated twice in three months — in July's tone and August's Jackson Hole language — that he's willing to move markets with words alone before he moves rates with votes. That's a durable feature of this Fed, not a one-off. We've kept volatility exposure around Fed communications elevated heading into September as a result, and it's a posture we'd recommend holding through year-end.