The Fed Talks Out of Both Mouths and Markets Can't Stop Laughing

Three dissents. That's the number that matters. Three voting members of the Federal Open Market Committee looked at the room full of suits at the December meeting, heard the case for another rate cut, and said "nope." Not quietly. Not by abstaining. By voting no.

This hasn't happened since 2019, and the minutes released yesterday make it clear why: the Fed is operationally divided in a way that suggests they've stopped pretending to know where this thing is actually going.

Let's break what went down. The Fed cut rates by 0.25%, bringing the key rate to 3.5%-3.75%. Fine. Normal. The kind of move that happens so often it barely registers. But the vote count—9 to 3—screams something else entirely. Governor Stephen Miran wanted to cut harder. Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid wanted to cut zero. Chicago's Austan Goolsbee wanted to cut zero. Chicago and Kansas City. The heartland. The people who actually talk to businesses and workers, not the Washington crowd. And they're saying pump the brakes.

Meanwhile, some of the other seven members who voted yes? The minutes say they had "misgivings." They supported the cut but think holding steady for "some time" might be appropriate. In Fed speak, that's called burying your actual opinion under the wheels of consensus.

When the Bank of America Trades Better Than the Fed

Here's what's genuinely unhinged: the Fed released its "dot plot" saying one cut in 2026. One. Maybe zero depending on who you ask and what day it is. But the futures market is pricing in two cuts, with the first potentially in April. The institution that's supposed to control the narrative has lost control of the narrative to Chicago Mercantile Exchange traders making bets at 2 a.m.

Markets responded by closing down three consecutive days. The S&P 500 is down 0.2% from the December 23 close—meaning the Santa Claus rally, that supposedly reliable bounce at year-end that Wall Street lives and dies for, is already dead. Murdered by the Fed's own incohesion. The Nasdaq shed 0.24%. The Dow fell 95 points. These aren't crashes. They're worse—they're boredom. They're the market saying "we don't believe you and we don't believe each other either."

Tesla dropped 3.3% on Monday. Nvidia fell 1.2%. Palantir got hammered for 2.4%. The tech trade that carried the entire market in 2025 is starting to get a sickly feeling. Sure, Meta bought some AI startup called Manus for $2 billion to show they're still in the race. But Meta was up 1.1% yesterday in a field of red. That's not conviction. That's desperation peacocking as strategy.

Silver Is Up 150% and Nobody's Talking About Why

The real story got buried yesterday under the Fed hysteria: silver futures are up over 150% for the year. One-fifty. A double from a few months ago. This hits record highs north of $80, then crashes 7% Monday, rebounds Tuesday, and everyone's pretending it's normal.

It's not normal. Silver is used in everything—solar panels, batteries, industrial processes, jewelry. When silver goes up 150%, inflation stories die on the vine and get replaced by something worse: the possibility that the Fed spent three rate cuts fighting a problem it misunderstood entirely. Or worse, that it created a new one.

Elon Musk came out and said high silver prices could raise production costs. Cue the Tesla selloff. Because nothing says "controlled inflation environment" like your industrial input costs tripling in a calendar year.

Copper is up 40%. Gold bounced back from a rougher patch. Oil is holding steady as the market waits for OPEC to tell the world it's keeping production where it is. The whole commodity complex is screaming something the Fed's dot plot isn't hearing: they may have just started a boom cycle they're not ready to manage.

Electricity Is About to Blow Up the November Elections

File this under "things nobody's talking about but should be." The Energy Information Administration says residential electricity prices are going up another 4% next year, after jumping nearly 5% in 2025. That's 9% in two years. For people already angry about their bills. For voters who just sent messages in 2024 about affordability in New Jersey and Virginia governor's races.

The AI data center boom is eating it. Nvidia's capex, plus everyone else chasing them, is sucking up electricity like a thirsty giant. The grid isn't ready. Utilities are charging more. And somewhere around October 2026, somebody's going to ask why their electric bill went up $200 a month and the answer is going to be "ChatGPT."

That's a story that kills earnings guidance and reshuffles political power all at once.

Three Trading Days Left and Nothing's Clear

We've got the last trading day of 2025 on Wednesday. January 1 is closed. Markets reopen January 2. That's it. A three-day gasp before the new year actually begins and people have to commit to opinions about what happens next.

The consensus on Wall Street is bullish for 2026—everyone's calling for 7,500 on the S&P 500, with one strategist from Evercore ISI now scared that everyone else is too confident. When the smart money's afraid of its own optimism, something's off.

The Fed wants one cut in 2026. The market's pricing two. Electricity is going up. Silver is insane. Tech is losing momentum. The Santa rally is dead. And we've got seventy-two hours to figure out if any of this matters.

Meanwhile, the Fed just released a memo that says "we're not sure" in a thousand different ways, called it policy consensus, and went home for Christmas.

Welcome to 2026. Clear as mud.