The Federal Reserve left its benchmark interest rate unchanged this week despite three dissenting votes from Fed governors who would’ve preferred the central bank hike rates to help rein in stubbornly-high inflation, they explained on Friday.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the Fed panel responsible for monetary policy moves, on Wednesday voted 9-3 to leave the federal funds rate unchanged at a range of 3.5% to 3.75%, where it has remained throughout 2026 so far.

The three dissenting votes were cast by Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari and Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan – each of whom raised concerns about inflation persisting above the central bank’s 2% target and said they would’ve preferred raising the federal funds rate by 25-basis-points.

Inflation trended lower in June but remains elevated from the energy price shock caused by the Iran war earlier this year, with the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index, up 3.7% in June compared with a year ago.

FED POLICYMAKERS LEAVE RATES UNCHANGED AMID ELEVATED UNCERTAINTY

Inflation has remained stubbornly above the Fed’s 2% target, with energy prices pushing it higher over the course of this year. (Li Rui/Xinhua via Getty Images)

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh, who was leading his second FOMC meeting since being confirmed as the central bank’s leader, acknowledged the importance of returning inflation to 2% to restore price stability even as he said that he thinks holding rates steady was “especially prudent at these uncertain times.”

“Not one of my FOMC colleagues is under any illusion, we have begun a new chapter, and we understand that the five-plus years of inflation above target cannot be cured in nine weeks, or by a single month of modest price decreases. This Fed will not waver. Our credibility rests on performing our duties and delivering on our responsibilities,” Warsh said.

Here’s a look at key points made by the three dissenting FOMC members in their explanations of why they would’ve preferred the central bank hike rates at this week’s policy meeting.

FED’S FAVORED INFLATION GAUGE SHOWED PRICES PULLED BACK IN JUNE

Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan

Logan explained that inflation “does not appear to be on course to sustainably achieve” the Fed’s 2% target, adding that, “Every month of above-target inflation compounds the strain on the budgets of American families and businesses.”

“Even after accounting for productivity gains and temporary supply shocks, inflation appears to be trending toward the mid-2’s, not all the way to 2%, and the risks are to the upside,” Logan explained. She also noted the labor market is “solid and perhaps strengthening,” which eases concerns about the maximum employment component of the Fed’s dual mandate.

Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan said that inflation doesn’t seem to be returning to its 2% target. (Shelby Tauber/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

She added that conditions in the labor and financial markets, as well as consumer spending trends, suggest that “monetary policy is not restraining the economy. Without any policy restraint, inflation will likely continue to trend above target until there’s an unanticipated shock.”

“The FOMC cannot count on unanticipated shocks to achieve its goals and can always adjust policy if unanticipated shocks occur. Modest action in the near term would reduce the likelihood of needing to take sharper action later,” Logan said in explaining her preference for a rate hike.

FED CHAIR KEVIN WARSH SAYS CENTRAL BANK HAS ‘NO TOLERANCE’ FOR ELEVATED INFLATION

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari

Kashkari discussed the similarities and differences between the current inflationary cycle and what the U.S. experienced in the 1970s with a series of successive supply shocks affecting commodities, food and energy markets; to the contemporary inflation caused by the pandemic, wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and trade tension leading to higher tariffs.

While central bankers half a century ago initially thought they faced a single supply shock that could “look through” because it would pass on its own, they ultimately determined they needed to raise rates to curb the inflationary pressures, Kashkari explained.

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said it wouldn’t be hard to pause or reverse rate hikes if needed. (John Lamparski/Getty Images)

“The economy today is in a much better place than it was then: unemployment is lower and inflation is much lower. But to manage against the risk that high inflation could become entrenched, I would rather tighten policy incrementally as we gather more data on the path of inflation and employment,” he wrote.

“If inflation remains elevated, in my view, a potential series of small policy moves would be better than waiting and eventually concluding that even bolder actions were necessary,” Kashkari said. “On the other hand, if inflation durably fades, a strategy of small policy steps would allow the FOMC to slow or pause subsequent adjustments without unnecessary impact on the real economy.”

BOFA CEO BRIAN MOYNIHAN DISMISSES RECESSION FEARS DESPITE WALL STREET’S MOST HAWKISH FED FORECAST

Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack

Hammack wrote that she is “not confident” that inflation will return to the Fed’s 2% target on its own, saying that the time is right for the central bank to take action to lower inflation as the “longer that high inflation persists, the more challenging and costly it can be to bring it back down.”

Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack dissented in favor of a 25-basis-point rate hike. (Victor J. Blue/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

She noted that while energy price shocks have driven much of the inflation this year, she’s hearing from businesses in her Fed district that pricing pressures are “broadening rather than fading, and consumers are expressing despair over persistently higher prices.”

“Given the stability of the labor market, with the unemployment rate near my estimate of maximum employment, I view high inflation as the more pressing problem,” Hammock explained.

GET FOX BUSINESS ON THE GO BY CLICKING HERE

“A higher federal funds rate would help restrain economic activity and reduce inflationary pressures. I preferred to move at our recent meeting because I did not see the current policy stance as appropriately restrictive,” she wrote.

Shares of Micron Technology fell 2.82% in Friday morning trading, dropping $24.66 to $850.00, as investors took profits following Thursday’s dramatic rally that had briefly pushed the stock up more than 16% amid renewed optimism about tightening global memory chip supplies.

Friday’s pullback came even as Wall Street’s overall outlook on the stock has remained decisively bullish. According to a report from Benzinga, Micron carries a consensus buy rating with an average analyst price target of $1,548.86. Several firms have issued increasingly aggressive price targets in recent weeks, including KeyBanc Capital Markets, which raised its target to $1,750 on July 14, and Cantor Fitzgerald, which lifted its own target to $2,000 on June 29 after reiterating a $1,500 target just days earlier.

TradingKey attributed the broader correction in Micron shares, which stood at more than 30% below the stock’s all-time high set at the end of June as of Tuesday, to a classic “sell-the-news” pattern following the company’s record third-quarter fiscal 2026 results and fourth-quarter guidance. “Driven by the AI wave, Micron once became one of the strongest-performing semiconductor stocks in 2026, with its stock price achieving a cumulative maximum gain of over 300% this year,” TradingKey reported. “With rapid valuation expansion, some capital chose to lock in profits after the company announced record financial results.”

TradingKey also pointed to a disclosed stock sale by Micron Chief Executive Sanjay Mehrotra as a contributing factor to recent market sentiment. According to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Mehrotra sold approximately $37.3 million worth of Micron stock in late July under a pre-established 10b5-1 trading plan, a mechanism executives commonly use to sell shares on a predetermined schedule to avoid the appearance of trading on insider information.

Micron’s stock has swung dramatically over the past several weeks even as the broader trend has remained upward. The stock officially entered a bear market in early July, according to CNBC, before rebounding sharply. Shares fell as much as 10.75% during a single session in late July amid broader concerns weighing on memory chip stocks, before staging Thursday’s rally, which one report from CNN described as a jump of up to 18% during the trading day. TipRanks reported that Thursday’s surge was fueled in significant part by Samsung Electronics’ earnings, which hinted at long-term memory chip shortages persisting through 2028, a signal that boosted sentiment across the broader memory sector, including Micron, SanDisk, Nvidia and Advanced Micro Devices.

Benzinga reported that Micron’s technical indicators remain constructive despite Friday’s pullback, noting that the stock’s 50-day moving average continues to trade above its 200-day moving average, a pattern generally viewed as a bullish signal by technical analysts. The stock currently trades at approximately 75% of its 52-week range, according to Benzinga, indicating it remains closer to its highs than its lows even after the recent volatility. Micron’s 52-week range spans from a low of $103.38 to a high of $1,255.00.

Micron reached a $1 trillion market capitalization on May 26, according to company information compiled by Google Finance, becoming the latest U.S. company to cross that valuation threshold amid surging demand for its high-bandwidth memory chips used in artificial intelligence applications. Founded in 1978 in Boise, Idaho, Micron remains the only major American computer memory manufacturer, competing alongside South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix as one of the industry’s so-called Big Three memory producers.

Wall Street analysts expect Micron to report earnings of $31.24 per share on revenue of $50.72 billion when the company next reports quarterly results, according to Benzinga, compared with $3.03 per share and $11.31 billion in the year-ago quarter, reflecting the scale of growth the company has posted amid surging demand for AI-related memory products. Micron’s most recent quarterly results, according to TradingView, showed earnings of $25.11 per share against an estimate of $20.86, a 20.36% surprise, on revenue of $41.46 billion versus an estimated $35.91 billion, with net income reaching $28.24 billion for the period.

CNBC’s Jim Cramer characterized the broader forced selling that has periodically hit Micron and other AI-linked stocks in recent weeks as potentially marking a turning point for the sector. According to CNBC, Cramer described the unwinding of certain hedge fund positions as “a clearing event” that could signal a bottom for the broader artificial intelligence trade, even as individual stocks like Micron continue to experience sharp single-day swings in both directions.

Micron remains a significant holding across multiple semiconductor-focused exchange-traded funds, according to Benzinga, meaning large inflows or outflows tied to those funds can amplify the stock’s price movements during periods of heightened volatility. With the company’s next quarterly earnings report expected around late September, according to various compiled estimates, investors are likely to continue closely watching both the trajectory of global memory chip pricing and any further signals from competitors like Samsung about the durability of the current supply shortage as key factors shaping the stock’s performance in the weeks ahead.

Shares of Nebius Group climbed 2.89% Friday morning, adding $5.45 to reach $193.88, extending a remarkable two-day rally that has seen the artificial intelligence infrastructure company’s stock swing dramatically as investors reassess both company-specific catalysts and broader sentiment toward the so-called neocloud sector.

Friday’s gains built on a new multiyear computing power agreement with Reflection AI, worth more than $1 billion through 2029, which had already lifted shares more than 4% in premarket trading, according to StocksToTrade. The Netherlands-based Nebius, a “neocloud” provider that sells access to graphics processing unit-based AI computing capacity, has increasingly positioned itself as a key infrastructure supplier to AI-native companies seeking computing power without building out their own data centers.

Thursday’s trading session, however, delivered by far the more dramatic move. Nebius shares surged as much as 31.64% at one point Thursday afternoon, according to TimothySykes.com, before settling with a gain that TipRanks separately clocked at 28.4%. The rally traced back to reporting from The Wall Street Journal that investment firm Citadel had acquired the bulk of hedge fund Situational Awareness’s public equity portfolio, according to TipRanks. That transaction eased fears of a disorderly liquidation of the fund’s heavily AI-weighted holdings, since Situational Awareness, founded by former OpenAI researcher Leopold Aschenbrenner, had disclosed a $2.6 billion stake in Nebius as of the first quarter of the year. The subsequent rally was consistent with a pattern of short sellers rushing to cover their positions as sentiment around the stock rapidly improved.

Nebius’s stock has also benefited from broader momentum across major technology companies’ AI infrastructure spending. Following blockbuster earnings from Microsoft and Meta Platforms, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg addressed the tension his company faces in deciding how much internal AI computing capacity to use versus sell externally, saying Meta is “getting a lot of offers for compute at a significant premium over what we paid for it,” according to AOL. Microsoft separately disclosed signing more than $130 billion in new data center leases and outlined plans to double its data center capacity within two years, developments that AOL reported have directly benefited Nebius given its business model of selling access to AI computing capacity.

Not every recent catalyst has worked in Nebius’s favor. Meta’s disclosed plans to sell excess AI computing capacity of its own had earlier triggered a 12% to 15% decline in neocloud stocks including Nebius and rival CoreWeave, according to TimothySykes.com, as traders repriced the competitive threat posed by hyperscale cloud providers potentially competing more directly with smaller, specialized AI infrastructure companies. Separately, a one-year moratorium on new hyperscale data center construction in New York state has introduced regulatory uncertainty, though analysts covering the stock have suggested the restriction could simply redirect infrastructure growth toward other, more accommodating states rather than meaningfully constraining Nebius’s overall expansion plans.

The scale of volatility in Nebius shares over recent weeks has been extraordinary even by the standards of high-momentum artificial intelligence stocks. According to StocksToTrade, the stock has whipped between the mid-$160s and the low-$220s over the course of just several trading sessions, with daily closes ranging from roughly $171 to $221. Robinhood data showed the stock trading between a daily high of $198.56 and a low of $155.00 during Thursday’s session alone, a range StocksToTrade and other trackers have attributed in part to heavy retail trading activity connected to the WallStreetBets community on Reddit.

Nebius has continued to draw institutional validation despite the volatility. Nvidia disclosed owning a 9.3% equity stake in Nebius, valued at roughly $5 billion, through a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission revealed publicly on July 20, a disclosure that had sent shares up nearly 19% in a single session when the news first emerged, according to Robinhood. Baird analysts initiated coverage of the stock with an outperform rating on July 22, according to Yahoo Finance compiled data, which also showed an average analyst price target of $258.13 and a range spanning from $120.00 to $410.00, alongside a consensus rating between “strong buy” and “buy.”

Nebius has called an Annual General Meeting for August 25 to approve its 2025 accounts and reshape aspects of its capital structure, according to a company announcement cited by TipRanks, a development that will give investors an additional formal opportunity to review the company’s financial position as its stock continues to attract outsized trading volume and volatility relative to its underlying business fundamentals.

Nebius’s stock has posted extraordinary gains over various time horizons even accounting for its sharp swings, with Yahoo Finance data showing total returns of 125.11% over a recent one-year period and gains as high as 1,218.61% over a longer measurement window, though the company’s premium valuation, with a price-to-earnings multiple of 55.36 according to Robinhood, and debt-heavy growth strategy remain factors some analysts continue to flag as risks even amid the stock’s dramatic recent rally.

With Thursday’s rally driven substantially by the resolution of hedge fund liquidation concerns rather than company-specific operational news, and Friday’s more modest gains tied directly to the new Reflection AI compute agreement, investors are likely to continue watching closely whether Nebius can sustain its current momentum as the broader neocloud sector works through a period of unusually elevated volatility tied to shifting sentiment around artificial intelligence infrastructure spending across the technology industry.

Presentation

Operator

Welcome to the Invesco Mortgage Capital Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this call is being recorded. I would like to turn the call over to Greg Seals in Investor Relations. Mr. Seals, you may begin the call.

Greg Seals
Investor Relations

Thanks, operator, and to all of you joining us on Invesco Mortgage Capital’s Second Quarter 2026 Earnings Call. In addition to today’s press release, we have provided a presentation that covers the topics we plan to address today.

The press release and presentation are available on our website, invescomortgagecapital.com. This information can be found by going to the Investor Relations section of the website. Our presentation today will include forward-looking statements and certain non-GAAP financial measures. Please review the disclosures on Slide 2 of the presentation regarding these statements and measures as well as the appendix for the appropriate reconciliations to GAAP.

Finally, Invesco Mortgage Capital is not responsible for and does not edit nor guarantee the accuracy of our earnings. Teleconference transcripts provided by third parties. The only authorized webcasts are located on our website.

Again, welcome, and thank you for joining us today. I’ll now turn the call over to IVR’s CEO, Kevin Collins, for his comments.

Kevin Collins
Chief Executive Officer

Good morning, and welcome to Invesco Mortgage Capital’s Second Quarter Earnings

Shares of Samsung Electronics surged 26.81% on Friday, climbing 55,500 won to close at 262,500 won, effectively hitting the exchange’s daily limit for individual stock price movements as South Korea’s benchmark KOSPI index posted the largest single-day rally in its history.

The KOSPI closed up 17.91% at 6,595.45, marking a record in both point and percentage terms, according to the Korea Herald, as chip stocks across the board rebounded sharply from a punishing weeklong selloff. Rival chipmaker SK Hynix climbed 29.95% during the same session, according to TradingKey, as both of South Korea’s dominant memory chip producers effectively erased much of the ground they had lost during three brutal preceding trading sessions.

Friday’s rally traced its origins directly to a powerful overnight session on Wall Street. Microsoft’s shares soared 15.5% Thursday for the company’s best single-day performance in nearly 18 years, according to the Associated Press, after the technology giant reported that its Azure cloud computing division grew 43% during the quarter, easing broader investor concerns about the sustainability of massive capital spending on artificial intelligence infrastructure. Amazon and Meta Platforms also posted upbeat results that reinforced expectations that AI-related spending remains robust, according to CNBC, sending shockwaves of optimism through Asian technology markets overnight.

Samsung’s own earnings had already reflected the underlying strength driving the rally, even before Friday’s dramatic share price move. The company’s semiconductor division reported operating income of 89.5 trillion won, beating the 88.13 trillion won analysts had expected, with robust artificial intelligence demand continuing to drive growth across Samsung’s memory chip business. The results confirmed that DRAM and NAND flash memory sales remained at all-time highs during the quarter, providing powerful third-party validation that the artificial intelligence-driven memory supercycle remains firmly intact even amid the recent bout of extreme volatility across the sector.

Friday’s rebound followed a brutal stretch for Korean equities. The KOSPI had plummeted more than 17% over the three trading sessions preceding Friday, driven by investor concerns about a potential bubble in artificial intelligence valuations and intensifying competition from Chinese chipmaking rivals, according to the Associated Press. At one point during that selloff, the index had fallen roughly 40% from its June peak, wiping out nearly $2 trillion in market value, according to reporting from the Private Banker.

Foreign investors were the driving force behind Friday’s historic rebound, posting net purchases of 7.25 trillion won, or roughly $5.06 billion, on the KOSPI, according to the Korea Herald. That marked a second consecutive day of net foreign buying, following four straight sessions of net selling that had preceded Thursday. Institutional investors, who began Friday’s session as net sellers, reversed course around midday and ended the day with net purchases of 1.15 trillion won.

Additional factors beyond the Microsoft-driven rally appeared to reinforce Friday’s gains for Samsung and SK Hynix alike. SK Group Chairman Chey Tae-won disclosed personal purchases of SK Hynix shares during the recent selloff, a move that bolstered broader investor confidence in South Korea’s memory chip sector, according to CNBC. New cash-deposit requirements for investors using leveraged exchange-traded funds also took effect July 31, a regulatory change some analysts said may have contributed to a broader repositioning among traders active in that corner of the market, while short-covering and mechanical rebalancing tied to leveraged ETFs were also cited as factors amplifying the scale of Friday’s move.

Despite the historic single-day gain, market analysts urged caution about reading too much into the rebound. Speaking to CNBC, one analyst identified only as Jung said foreign investors appeared to be the primary force behind Friday’s rally, but cautioned against assuming the gains signal a durable trend reversal. “I would not expect gains of this magnitude to continue,” Jung said, adding that asset prices had become “completely disconnected” from underlying fundamentals during the recent volatility.

Even after Friday’s rally, the KOSPI remained well below its levels from earlier in the year. The index recorded its worst monthly performance since 1997, dropping 22.19% over the course of July, according to TradingKey, underscoring that Friday’s rebound, while historic in scale, only partially offset the scale of losses the index had absorbed over the preceding weeks.

South Korean authorities also announced new measures Friday aimed at supporting the country’s technology and artificial intelligence sector more broadly. The government said it would inject a minimum of 20 trillion won, or approximately $13.9 billion, into the Korea Investment Corporation for strategic investments in artificial intelligence, data centers and broader infrastructure, according to the Private Banker, marking the first time the sovereign wealth fund’s mandate has been expanded to include domestic assets.

With Samsung shares having now hit the exchange’s daily trading limit and the broader KOSPI having posted its largest single-day gain on record, investors are likely to watch closely in the sessions ahead for signs of whether Friday’s rebound marks a genuine stabilization in sentiment toward AI-linked technology stocks or another dramatic swing within a period of extraordinary volatility that has gripped South Korea’s chip-heavy equity market throughout the second half of July.