New Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh delivered his first Jackson Hole speech on Aug. 28, and it came at a time when the interest rate path was already highly uncertain. Nine of the 18 voting Fed officials have at least one 2026 hike penciled into their projections, and Warsh’s remarks kept a September move firmly in play without explicitly calling for one. repriced the odds of a Sept. 16 Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) hike higher after the speech, underscoring how quickly rate expectations can shift. Couple this with the Treasury’s intervention into the bond market in an attempt to suppress rates, and you’ve got a recipe for more uncertainty ahead of the biggest Fed meeting of 2026.
It’s easy to say banks make money when rates are high, but there are different mechanisms at work throughout the financial sector. And when the rate path creates uncertainty, investors need several plans to adapt to ever-changing environments. The three selected stocks represent three different ways to play interest-rate uncertainty. Each occupies a niche in the finance industry and may outperform if certain market conditions materialize (or fail to materialize).
