Good afternoon everyone! Time to grade the week Three for three. The Fed hiked, raised the path, and every line held. 📰 TLDR: The defensive lean was right about the direction and cost nothing on the scorecard. ❗️ The grades, all at the Friday close: · Credit entered 2.70 against a 3.00 trigger and closed 2.70. It did not move all week. Spreads are tighter than they were a month ago, through a hike and a higher published path · Rates entered 4.623 against a 4.80 line and closed 4.754. Held by 4.6 basis points, the closest grade of the week · Equities entered 7,657 against a 7,500 floor and closed 7,650. Down 7 points on the week, never near the floor Record: 57 graded, 52 held, 5 broke. 🏆 The arc, answered in the words it was registered in: was Friday's flip signal, or a one print flinch? Signal, on the channel. The 2 year kept going, 4.623 to 4.754, and the 10 year closed above 5.00 for the first time since 2023. The stress that broke last week's rates line did not reverse, it continued. And the lines held anyway. Sunday's read widened rates from the broken 4.45 to 4.80, granting 0.18 of path on the argument that it was about two thirds of what the prior week actually moved. The week moved 13 basis points. Inside the grant, with 4.6 to spare. The retired 4.45 line would have broken by 30. The honest caveat, once: holding by 4.6 basis points is a pass, not a comfortable one. Breadth fell for a seventh straight week and the curve flattened from 0.39 to 0.27 while this happened. The cushion is thinner than the scorecard makes it look. What did not happen: credit never participated. Three weeks of rate stress, a hike, a hawkish dot plot, and the price of credit risk sat at 2.70 the entire time. And risk did not flinch either. Bitcoin closed the week up 5 percent at 81,000, MSTR up nearly 18 percent, both through a hike and a raised path. The stress lived in rates and nowhere else, which is the whole argument for watching credit instead of headlines. See you all Sunday for the edition, three new lines and the week ahead. Have a great weekend!