The day before the Federal Reserve meets, the manager of BlackRock's global fixed income business says the hike is coming, that he would not vote for it, and that it will do nothing about the prices it is aimed at.
The market has it at better than 90%. Rick Rieder would not have priced it that high, and told Scott Wapner a few weeks ago that the Fed would stay on hold. What changed is the data and the committee, not his view of what a quarter point can achieve.
"Are you really going to do anything for inflation? What's driving inflation is interest rate insensitive."
Rieder is Chief Investment Officer of Global Fixed Income at BlackRock and runs its global allocation team, so he is positioned across the curve rather than talking about it — significantly underweight the long end, newly buying "a few pieces" of it, and running an income fund at under three years of duration.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it.
Here are the 9 calls that matter.
👤 Guest: Rick Rieder, Chief Investment Officer of Global Fixed Income at BlackRock and Head of its Global Allocation team
🎙️ Host: Scott Wapner, host of CNBC's Halftime Report, broadcasting from the Future Proof conference in Huntington Beach, California
🧩 Other segments: the Investment Committee on artificial intelligence regulation, with Kate Rooney reporting from San Francisco, and Stephanie Link's Trade Tracker
📰 Published: 15 September 2026 on CNBC's Halftime Report
🟣 Apple Podcasts | 🔗 Episode page | ⏱️ length not available
Key Takeaways
He expects the hike and would not vote for it, because the things driving inflation do not respond to interest rates
His list is war, energy prices, education, insurance and health care
Raising rates is not free for the issuer: 100 basis points costs the US government $100 billion
The country has a compounding debt problem, so the rate ultimately has to come down
A 25 basis point move is too small to matter and a move big enough to matter would break the rest of the economy
The 10-year at 5% has historically been a buy signal, and he has started to act on it in small size
He is still significantly underweight the long end, because Treasury and corporate supply are both heavy
He is running an income fund at under three years of duration and a 7.2% yield with an A-minus average rating
Equities were an exceptional opportunity a year ago and are a B minus now
20-25% earnings growth is the bar to clear, on the back side of the fiscal tailwind and during a war
There is no magic yield level that ends the equity market, but there is real refinancing risk in real estate and private credit
1. Yes, They Hike
Wapner opened by asking straight out whether the Fed raises rates the next day.
"Yeah they're going to hike. I mean I think I think the markets are pricing in over 90%."
He would not have put the probability that high himself, but said the position the committee is in makes it hard to do anything else.
The constraint he named is communication. With no forward guidance on offer and the back end of the yield curve as volatile as it has been, a Fed that failed to deliver what the market had assumed would be creating a problem rather than solving one.
2. Why He Wouldn't
Wapner pointed out that Rieder had told him a few weeks earlier that the Fed would be on hold "for a period of time", and asked whether he had changed his mind about whether they should move. Rieder said no, five times over.
"I've learned in investing it doesn't really matter what I think. It matters what they do and it matters what the markets perceive that they're going to go."
The objection is that the tool does not reach the problem. "Are you really going to do anything for inflation? What's driving inflation is interest rate insensitive." His list of what is actually pushing prices: war, energy prices, education, insurance costs and health care.
What a rate rise does reach is the part of the economy already struggling. "Look at the housing market that's frozen."
The cost he says nobody prices is the government's own. "US government, when you move rates up 100 basis points, it's $100 billion to the US government." He said he had presented the point at a conference days earlier.
"The tricky part is we're going to have a compounding debt problem in the country." Ultimately, he said, that rate has to come down.
He drew the line between the two economies: most of the country is having a tough time with these rates, and the parts driving capital spending are doing just fine.
3. Credibility vs the Data
Wapner asked whether a hike would be about credibility rather than inflation, and pressed the point — the chairman has said publicly that he will not tolerate inflation where it is, and was hawkish at Jackson Hole, so how does he not move now?
Rieder does not accept the premise that the institution's credibility is at stake. "I think people are pretty harsh when they say a couple of meetings and now they have a credibility issue."
His argument is that credibility comes from method: laying out which metrics decide where rates go, and being thoughtful about the task forces and the complex questions in front of them.
He also said vigilance does not require the funds rate. The balance sheet and liquidity are tools that can be used toward the same end.
What forces the move is the arithmetic on the table and the shape of the committee: core PCE inflation above target, a series of speakers beyond the chairman having said so, and a group that feels it is time to go.
The counterfactual is explicit. With a softer employment report or a softer inflation print, he said, the Fed could have waited.
Wapner's summary was "The data last week forced their hand." Rieder agreed, while noting the consumer price index was pushed higher by outside influences including telecom services.
4. Dabbling in the Long End
Asked what the long end does if the Fed hikes, Rieder said something he has not said for a long time.
Long-dated interest rates have not been interesting for years. For the first time, the break-even math has changed enough that he has started buying — in his word, dabbling.
The history he cited is a level rather than a forecast: "I was looking at when the ten year hits 5%, 95% of the time in history, when it does, it's really good forward investment environment in terms of buying interest rates."
He still expects yields to rise a little further if the hike lands, and expects the curve to flatten. "I think the yield curve will flatten. I think the back end will hold in just fine."
The position is small against a large underweight. BlackRock has been significantly underweight the back end for a long time and bought only a few pieces, and could still own a great deal more than it does.
What holds him back is supply, on both sides of the market. "The amount of supply that's coming to market is significant." Treasury issuance and corporate credit issuance together are a real source of pressure on long rates.
"I think you can own a bit here." On a longer time horizon he thinks you can own rates outright — but today, buy a little and be careful.
5. 7.2% Inside Three Years
Wapner asked whether his preference for the middle of the curve was changing.
It has moved the other way. He now likes the very front end more.
The fund he pointed to runs under three years of duration. "Now we're running actually 7.2% yield with a with an a minus average rating."
His case for that part of the curve is the volatility, or the absence of it — a high yield without the price swings that come with owning long-dated bonds.
"We're up money this year, which in fixed income has been pretty tough to do."
The overall shape of the book is therefore a shift forward, plus the couple of pieces out at the back end.
6. One Hike, Then Stop
Asked whether this is one and done, Rieder gave the answer in two parts.
The move is too small to work. "If you're going to hike and you want to make a difference, you got to go more."
A move big enough to work is a move he will not argue for, because of what it does to the rest of the country.
"So my ultimate view is, I think you probably do this hike. I don't think we're going to get much forward guidance." He expects no guidance because that has become the philosophy.
He does not think they should go any further after this one, and left the rest to the data.
7. The Treasury's Tools
Wapner asked about the Treasury's intervention in the bond market and why yields have kept backing up anyway.
Rieder reads the intervention as a signal rather than a price target: the Treasury is not trying to manipulate or set the level of long rates, but is demonstrating that it has tools if traders press against the back end.
He thinks the reaction to the size has been out of proportion. Against about $40 trillion of debt, he said, arguing about whether the purchase was $6 billion or $8 billion is ridiculous.
The bigger claim is that nothing is broken. "It's not really unanchored. It's reflecting the fact you've got strong growth in the economy." He described an economy running, on a real-time basis, well over 6%.
Wapner held him to his own earlier word — last time, Rieder had called the back end "untethered".
His answer was that individual days get volatile, and that the level is not the same thing as the volatility.
He expects yields to peak, for two reasons: the fiscal stimulus is at its back end, and the first derivative of capital spending growth from artificial intelligence should be lower from here.
"I don't think the treasury has to jump in and significant size."
On the Treasury secretary's line that he is "the house", Rieder declined to fight about the wording. It is a hard job, the asymmetric-information point is a fair one, and the secretary has good information — from what Japan is doing to where the deficit forecasts sit. The secretary's working view, as Rieder reads it, is that growth at this level produces tax receipts high enough to manage the debt.
8. Stocks Get a B Minus
Wapner turned to equities, and what they do if the hike lands.
Rieder's first move was to warn off the question: "So first of all, one thing I've learned no matter what the stock market does, people will say it was because of the Fed." He recalled a market that rallied and then got hammered around one meeting, with the Fed blamed for both.
A single day is not the thing to trade. What matters is that people can see the Fed moving, and as long as the market gets behind it, he expects equities to have an okay time.
The comparison that matters to him is a year ago, in the same slot at the same conference, when he called it the best investment environment of all time. He does not say that now.
The reason is that the alternative got real. "The fact that I could build a portfolio of over 7% with a three year duration single, a, it's like all of a sudden the alternative to stocks is real."
Multiples have moved, the gross domestic product surge that buoyed stocks has passed, and when he goes sector by sector he finds few where the balance of upside to downside looks great.
His grade: "I think stocks are fine, but I think they're a b minus today." Wapner put it as an A plus a year ago against a B minus now; Rieder would not characterize the old one but kept the new one.
The volatility call follows from the earnings bar. "I think the volatility of equities will be higher going forward because you got to grow at 20%."
"We've been growing at 20-25% earnings growth. That is a pretty hard bar to eclipse when you're on the back side of fiscal tailwind, when you have a war that obviously creates some, some duress around it."
9. No Magic Number at 5%
Wapner's closing point was that peaking earnings plus yields that challenge the multiple is a serious combination. Rieder's answer was to take apart the idea of a level that ends the market.
Every level has been named in turn over the years he and Wapner have been doing this — 3%, 3.5%, 4%, 4.5% — and each was going to be the end of it. Five is now the round number.
"I don't think there's a number, but I do think something has evolved and there is rollover financing risk in a number of sectors today." The condition attached is that the move happens in a deliberate way.
Where he expects that refinancing risk to show up is commercial real estate and bilateral credit finance — loans negotiated directly between a lender and a borrower rather than sold into a public market.
The structural change is on the buyer's side. An endowment, pension or foundation with an operating budget to fund needs a return of, in his words, "usually that return is about 7%" — and that is now available in a low-volatility, stable form rather than by hoping for another year of earnings growth.
He has seen clients start to move on exactly that logic — and was careful about the size of it: not a lot, and most people still feel pretty good about equities.
Bonus Insights
The interview ran from Future Proof in Huntington Beach, California, the same conference at which Rieder made the "best investment environment of all time" call a year earlier — which is why the comparison was available to both of them.
Rieder credited one of the panelists, Josh, with the framing he agreed with on the equity reaction: as long as the market gets behind the Fed's move, stocks can live with it.
Wapner's questions twice held Rieder to things he had said on earlier appearances — that the Fed would be on hold "for a period of time", and that the back end looked "untethered" — and in both cases Rieder defended the earlier line rather than dropping it.
Rieder's bottom line is that the Fed hikes tomorrow for reasons that have little to do with what is driving prices, that the front end of the bond market now pays enough to be a genuine alternative to stocks, and that equities are merely okay at a moment when they have to clear an earnings bar of 20% or more.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
BlackRock (Rieder's firm — he runs global fixed income and heads the global allocation team, and is significantly underweight the long end of the Treasury curve)
Watch the full episode:
If this was worth your time, send it to someone who has to have a view on this.
Get the latest market chatter as it happens: