US Equity Investors to Look for Hawkish Tilt in Fed Policy Announcements While Focusing on Iran Geopolitics This Week

05:30 AM EDT, 09/14/2026 (MT Newswires) -- US equity investors are expected to look out for follow-through in the Federal Reserve's policy announcements, retail sales and Iran geopolitics this week. * The Federal Reserve is widely expected to hike the target rate for the federal funds by 25 basis points on Wednesday while also releasing the Summary of Economic Projections. Fed Chair Kevin Warsh's press conference will begin at 2:30 pm E.T. * The strongest argument for hiking is that Warsh has probably boxed himself in with his high deference to markets, Derek Holt, head of capital market economics at Scotiabank, said in a note. "If you don't hike when it's priced, then when? If he doesn't hike, then markets may pay less heed to his hawkish laments," Holt said. He added, however, that hiking would be a "policy error" because the inflation threat is "overstated and so is job market resilience." * Macroeconomic data due this week include retail sales, ADP employment change, jobless claims, import and export prices, building permits and housing starts, and industrial production. * Middle East diplomacy appeared to falter heading into Monday with the postponement of a meeting between Iran and other Persian Gulf powers, Reuters reported. Fresh strikes from Houthi, an Iran-aligned militia group, on Saudi Arabia and Tehran's attacks on ships in the Gulf compounded supply concerns following the closure of a key Saudi oil pipeline, the news agency said. * Quarterly earnings due this week include Trip.com (TCOM) and Lennar (LEN). * S&P 500 companies' earnings increased almost 53% year-over-year, versus consensus for nearly 23% growth as of June 30, according to a D. A. Davidson note. Large investment gains that Alphabet (GGOG, GOOGL) recognized in SpaceX (SPCX) and Amazon.com (AMZN)-backed Anthropic skewed some of this growth, but even backing out this contribution, operating earnings growth was over 30%, per the note. Looking ahead to Q3, consensus is for S&P 500 earnings to surge more than 28% year over year.