Fed Week: Warsh Faces Credibility Test, Accenture, Anthropic

The Federal Reserve meets this week with a near-certain outcome. Markets price a 98% chance rates stay unchanged Wednesday. The real unknown is what Kevin Warsh says in his first post-meeting press conference.

Warsh stressed Fed independence during his confirmation hearings. Still, it would defy credulity to think he got the nod from the White House without signaling some sympathy for lower rates – a call President Trump has made repeatedly. Inflation pressures tied to the Strait of Hormuz and stronger-than-expected jobs data have traders pricing in a quarter-point hike by year-end.

Seeking Alpha analyst Damir Tokic said a hawkish Fed signal would show credibility. A dovish or even neutral message, he warned, could raise questions about whether monetary policy is becoming politically influenced. Investors will also watch the dot plot – whether Warsh adds his own dot or abstains. Former officials have suggested he may overhaul the projections process, possibly eliminating the dot plot or other forward guidance.

Accenture reports Thursday. Wall Street expects EPS of $3.71 on revenue of about $18.8 billion. Seeking Alpha analyst Cash Flow Venue, who has a Strong Buy rating, sees recent weakness as a rare long-term entry point. "The business model is much more stable than Mr. Market seems to believe," they wrote. Accenture's valuation and dividend yield support further upside, they added. CarMax and Jabil report Tuesday. Kroger joins Accenture on Thursday.

Anthropic took its newest AI models offline for all users after the U.S. government issued an export-control directive. The Wall Street Journal reported that discussions between the Trump administration and Amazon CEO Andy Jassy helped prompt the move. Jassy told Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that Amazon researchers could prompt Anthropic's Fable 5 model into generating information useful for cyberattacks. Security researchers validated the concerns. Rather than restrict access to foreign nationals, Anthropic said Friday it was disabling Fable 5 and Mythos 5 altogether.

For income investors, several stocks go ex-dividend Monday. Altria pays July 10. Coca-Cola, with an Alpha Score of 51 on our platform, pays July 1. Meta pays June 25. UnitedHealth pays June 23.

In a lighter vein, Seeking Alpha asked AI models to compare World Cup teams to stocks. ChatGPT matched Germany to Nvidia. Claude picked France as Nvidia. Gemini chose Spain as Nvidia. Argentina was Berkshire Hathaway. Brazil was Amazon. England was Microsoft, which sits at $390.74 with an Alpha Score of 56. The United States was OpenAI or Amazon, depending on the model.

One of those models will look brilliant in a month. The others will have a lot of explaining to do.