Tomorrow is the 4th of July, the only time of the year Americans say the day and month in the correct order. We find ourselves in the traditional “dog days of summer” which refer to the hottest and most uncomfortable days typically occurring from July 3 to August 11 in the Northern Hemisphere. Did someone say “dog”? Thank you to David I. who sent along a story about how inflation shows up in the price of hot dogs at the yearly Coney Island display of gluttony. While President Trump continues to publicly berate Fed Chair Powell (but can’t fire him), it is important for lenders to remember that though the economic data is all backward looking, the economy is currently too strong to justify Fed rate cuts, given the inflation risk, or at least the volatility of tariff decisions. So, we sit. Besides, the bond market will move before the Fed. (Today’s podcast can be found here and this week’s is sponsored by Figure, which is shaking up the lending world with their five-day HELOC, offering borrower approvals in as little as five minutes and funding in five days. Figure has hundreds of partners in the banking, CU, home improvement, and (of course) IMB space embedding their technology, giving borrowers an experience they will rave about. Today’s has an interview with Optimal Blue’s Jeff McCarty on the growing importance of integrated, data-driven tools in secondary marketing to improve pricing precision, risk management, and efficiency, particularly as market volatility, product diversity, and AI adoption reshape the hedging and trading landscape.)