My 2c on Financials

Research evidence excerpt

Rob O'Dwyer - Specialist Sales - US Financials AC

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC

North America Specialist Sales

JPMORGAN

16 September 2026

My 2c on Financials

Rob O’Dwyer

Key Highlights

FOMC

IB growth trends

Alts trends

HBAN

Morning – All eyes on the FOMC today, with the market clearly leaning toward a 25bp hike. I'll be honest that I struggle to

translate that cleanly into a financials call, but my working view is that as long as the AI capex themes stay intact, that secular

pull outweighs an incremental 25bp on the cost of capital. Worth remembering why the hike risk carries more weight than usual

this time. It's a credibility story as much as a data story. The July presser was described by our economists as Warsh's "most

troubling yet," precisely because he never tied the hawkish inflation talk to a conditional path, and three regional presidents

dissented in favor of 25bp citing above-target inflation and full employment. The setup into September was that the data were

"not sufficient" to move the patient majority yet, though better job growth was expected to turn the tide before year-end.

On the AI capex debate, the color from the IBs presenting at the competitor conference yesterday said those themes remain firmly

intact in their estimation, and some of the numbers they put up mitigated the bearishness the BAC update implied on Monday.

Increasingly this looks like a BAC issue rather than a market issue writ large, and the read-across supports that. Further, current

IB guidance may prove conservative given September is usually the decisive month. I'll reflect further post the GS commentary at

2pm, and I still can't get over DSol deciding to go head-to-head with Kevin Warsh today of all days.

Turning to the alts, we're seeing real buying flow through those names on the desk and it seems to me that the catalyst is clearly

the AI capex cycle. The Barclays firesides this week were about as strong as I've heard them, and that's what's pulling the bid in.

The setup is simple. Every manager is positioning as the toll-taker on the buildout, not the marginal equity dollar. Kleinman said it

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