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Good morning. Major central bank decisions are due this week, starting with the Federal Reserve, more on the walkout led by United Auto Work [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( Good morning. Major central bank decisions are due this week, starting with the Federal Reserve, more on the walkout led by United Auto Workers, and the latest MLIV Pulse UK edition survey results are in. – [Nour Al Ali]( Dot plot The Federal Reserve's updated forecasts for its benchmark interest rate, due Wednesday, are looming as a potential decider for a Treasuries market at risk of a third year of losses. The two key questions for the [dot plot]( are whether policymakers retain expectations for one more 25 basis-point rate hike by year-end, and how much easing they are penciling in for 2024. Other major central bank decisions [are also]( due, including the Bank of England and Bank of Japan. Hurricane Fain Detroit automakers survived a pandemic and semiconductor shortage. They were embracing a historic transition to the electric-vehicle era, underwritten by billions in subsidies from the Biden administration. Profits were rolling in. Then came [Hurricane Fain](. The walkout led by United Auto Workers President Shawn Fain at three General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis factories is [no ordinary]( labor-versus-industry clash. MLIV Pulse A Labour-led government after the next UK election would be the best result for stocks and the pound, according to a new Markets Live Pulse [survey that]( shows the ruling Conservatives have failed to win back the faith of global investors a year after Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-budget. UK borrowing costs spiraled during Truss’s [short-lived]( reign after she promised to slash taxes without cutting spending. Part of the legacy is higher mortgage rates for Britons, and most survey respondents predicted [house prices]( would fall 10%-20% or even more. Risk off [Stocks fell]( as traders took risk off the table ahead of a raft of policy decisions this week from the US, the UK and Japan. US equity futures signaled a slight rebound from Friday’s declines on Wall Street. Brent crude oil [pushed toward]( $95 a barrel, highlighting inflationary pressures ahead of those meetings. US Treasury yields ticked higher, with the policy-sensitive two-year rate above 5%. The dollar and gold were steady, while Bitcoin rose. Coming up… It’s a light calendar today, with New York Fed Services Business Activity due at 8:30 a.m. and NAHB Housing Market Index at 10 a.m New York time. What we’ve been reading This is what’s caught our eye over the weekend. - Hedge funds just [turned bullish]( on the dollar. - Israel and Saudi Arabia normalization talks [are still ongoing](. - Ukraine to file a [WTO complaint]( as EU neighbors impose grain ban. - McCarthy’s demands[ to avert]( a US government shutdown. - Wall Street’s targets are [a-changin’](. - China sent a [record number]( of military aircraft toward Taiwan. And finally, here's what Joe’s interested in this morning... Happy Fed Week. On Wednesday we get a fresh FOMC Rate Decision, and the consensus view is that they keep short-term rates unchanged. Citi economists Andrew Hollenhorst and Veronica Clark say they are expecting a "hawkish skip," as they see the "dots" showing one more hike this year. They also see a risk that 2024 rate expectations could move higher. Something that's already kind of wild, in retrospect, is that just earlier this year, the market was already pricing in a rate-cut cycle. Back in February, [swaps were pricing in 50 basis points of cuts between June and December](. And then of course in March, we had the implosion of SVB, and it seemed to a lot of people that that would represent the end of the rate-hike cycle. After all there's a thing people say that the Fed will always end up hiking rates until "something breaks" and it seemed like SVB (and Signature etc.) was the thing that broke. Yet those breaks turned out to be insignificant. The economy kept powering ahead. Here we are in mid-September, the Fed is over 5%, and it seems the economy is still powering higher. There's been some signs of cooling. The pace of job creation has slowed down. Quits and Job Openings are down too. Wage growth has seen some slowdown. The broad inflation measures are also lower than they were at the beginning of the year. But consumption remains strong, and the labor market still appears to be quite tight. Meanwhile energy is back on the rise, putting strong upward pressure on headline inflation yet again. We never had any kind of double dip recession in the 2010s, but we did have some scares. In Q3 2011 there was a lot of gloom. There was something of a [manufacturing recession in 2015](. And then of course, there was the panic at the end of 2018, which forced the Fed to cut rates at the start of 2019. So the 2010s were years of growth, but all the surprises were to the downside basically. So far what characterizes the 2020s are upside surprises. Surprise growth. Surprise inflationary pressure. There's some hope or expectation that perhaps the Fed has reached the end of its hiking cycle, and that it can get comfortable with the trajectory of inflation. We'll learn more about how confident FOMC officials are feeling on that front this week. Follow Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal on Twitter [@TheStalwart]( Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? 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