if today stung, its worth naming why. the market was priced around two thirds pause, so the softer path was the comfortable assumption and comfortable assumptions tend to come with bigger size attached. worth pulling apart:

• the surprise was tone, not data
• he gave no timetable and said not to treat it as guidance
• the september question is open again, which is different from resolved

the trap now is treating one speech as teh new certainty and repositioning just as heavily in the other direction. an open question deserves a smaller position than a closed one. no calls from me here, just a reminder that surviving an unclear setup is usually more valuable than being early to the next story