Former U.S. National Security official Michael Allen rejoins the RenMac Off-Script team to discuss the prolonged standoff in the Strait of Hormuz, why oil prices have remained surprisingly contained, and how the conflict is testing U.S. military capacity and strategic credibility. The team explores the intensifying competition with China over critical minerals, AI and compute, the growing political backlash against hyperscalers and data centers, and what winning the AI race actually means. They also break down the historic unwind in momentum, why elevated inflation and middling growth are flashing a more cautious market-cycle signal, and how resilient credit markets and a still-positive equity trend are keeping the broader bull case intact.

RenMac is joined this week by Kevin Muir, author of The Macro Tourist and co-host of The Market Huddle podcast to discuss why the Fed has run out of room to move before the midterms and what that means for bonds, gold, and the AI trade. The team explores why rising yields are a rational response to global deficits and the largest infrastructure build-out since the 1850s, why the People's Bank of China — not the Treasury — is the real driver of gold, and why the hyperscaler capex boom looks more like an earnings bubble than a price bubble. They also cover Bessent's buyback operations, widening credit spreads, the momentum unwind, tariffs, and Jackson Hole.

RenMac breaks down Treasury's move to double its long-end liquidity support ops to $4 billion, its turn from plumbing to arguing yields don't reflect fundamentals and how bill-funding those buys lands them on the Fed's sheet. The team also discusses why a 53-year high in capex intentions is credit-financed capacity that looks like growth until the cost of capital reprices, Oracle and Nvidia CDS at new highs, PMIs as a bad indicator for asset allocation and why P/Es are siren songs in the context of shooting failed momentum in the back.

RenMac breaks down a July inflation picture that isn't cooperating (softer CPI, firmer PPI, and core PCE annualizing near 2.5%), and why the bond market is under-pricing the risk of a September hike. The team also discusses slowing consumer spending after a weak retail sales print, a tape where the trend holds in the face of the momentum unwind and the Leopold rebound, the Credit Card Competition Act's path onto the Clarity Act, AOC's rise in the betting markets, and the week ahead in Fed minutes.

Former CEA Chair and Federal Reserve Board of Governors member Steve Miran joins the RenMac Off-Script team to discuss why he sees potential growth running closer to 3% than 2% — on tax incentives, deregulation, and AI — and why a data-dependent Fed is "momentum trading" monetary policy rather than forecasting inflation a year out. The team breaks down AI capex draining tech free cash flow, the Warsh Fed's dissents and Waller's hawkish turn, a stronger yen and the mechanics of possible FX intervention. They also explore new S&P highs, Middle East uncertainty, and the week ahead in the CPI print.

Boucher fills in for Dutt, hosting an especially off-script edition of RenMac Off-Script, covering the biggest earnings and macro week of the summer, headlined by Kevin Warsh's dovish Fed hold. Neil Dutta argues the move reeks of a credibility problem that leaves the chair looking weak, with the long end selling off and a September hike increasingly likely as inflation—not growth—owns the Fed's reaction function. Jeff deGraaf puts a face on the momentum crash through the blow-up and rescue of Leopold's levered semis-versus-software trade, calling it a clearing event rather than the all-clear. The team also digs into rising global yields, energy's quiet leadership, tightening credit conditions, and Steve Pavlick's read on reconciliation, the debt limit, and the odds on the Clarity Act.

RenMac breaks down the case for a Fed hike next week — Neil Dutta's "Why Not Now?" call, with September already priced at 100% — as AI capex, rising oil, and tariffs push inflation the wrong way and Warsh weighs moving in his honeymoon. The team also discusses the momentum crash and why the bounce is better sold than endorsed, real yields zapping gold and duration, $100 oil as the Iran conflict shuts the Red Sea, tariff maneuvering after Section 122's expiry, rotation into banks and healthcare, and the week ahead in the July 29 FOMC and core PCE.

RenMac breaks down the vicious unwind in the momentum trade, why a low headline VIX is masking the highest single-stock dispersion the team has ever measured, and how a cooler CPI print does little to stop the Fed conversation from tilting toward a September hike, with inflation, not growth, now owning the reaction function. The team also discusses rising Strait of Hormuz tensions and elevated oil, a looming 25% Brazil tariff, Korea's AI-driven rate hike, yen intervention risk, and the Washington theater around Fed leadership and congressional stock-trading rules.

Big Technology podcast host Alex Kantrowitz joins the RenMac Off-Script team to discuss whether the AI buildout has quietly become the load-bearing pillar of the U.S. economy and what breaks if it stalls. The team breaks down why the compute crunch is separating clear winners from losers, why the semiconductor tape is flashing classic top-of-cycle signals, and why the productivity boom needed to justify the capex simply isn't showing up in the data. They also explore how real rates rather than inflation are tightening financial conditions, why the Warsh Fed is tilting hawkish toward a possible hike, and how a populist revolt against data centers and the escalating China race are reshaping the policy backdrop.

RenMac is joined by banking and payments veteran Howard Mason and digs into a soft payroll report, Chair Warsh's price-stability regime shift, and firming real rates. The team questions how the Fed actually delivers on price stability while hawks fill the vacuum, and turns to a market cycle clock stuck in its worst zone, thinning semiconductor leadership, embers of private credit stress, the yen carry trade and the oil-and-gas round trip.