RiskReversal Pod · Oct 9, 2026 · 44m · 27m saved
With Peter Boockvar, Chief Investment Officer at OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners
The US government collects about $5 trillion a year and sends about $1 trillion of it to interest payments, Peter Boockvar said, and he expects that share to keep growing.
The Federal Reserve has raised rates this year when markets expected cuts. Boockvar said the Fed matters less than the bond market, where investors who ignored government borrowing for decades have started to demand more to lend.
"Our entire investing career, no one cared." — Peter Boockvar
Peter Boockvar, Chief Investment Officer at OnePoint BFG Wealth Partners, on RiskReversal Pod, chairs the firm's investment committee and sets its asset allocation, according to the firm. He also writes The Boock Report on Substack and is a CNBC contributor.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 44 minutes of audio, 17 minutes of reading.
Here are the 10 calls that matter.
Key Takeaways
The bond market, not the Fed, is setting the cost of capital
He doubts a Fed hike slows data center construction or adds crude supply
France's budget is pushing up yields across Europe, and the US deficit is larger relative to GDP
Hyperscalers may borrow up to $500B this year because free cash flow no longer covers their spending
US rates could reach 6%, raising the government's interest bill
The triple-C yield is already 15%, and a 2021 loan at 3% now refinances at 8–9%
The capex is a bubble, the technology is not, and nobody yet knows how agents make money
Google could cut Meta's Muse agent off from Gmail, Calendar and Chrome
Only about 40% of NYSE stocks are above their 200-day average, down from 64% 6 weeks earlier
Oil inventories could take 2 years to normalize even if the war ended today, citing Saudi Aramco's CEO
Bank earnings will test deposit costs and loan demand after refinancing costs rose 70bps in 3 weeks
1. The Market Leads the Fed
The host opened with the CME FedWatch tool: the probability of a 25 basis point hike at the October Fed meeting had fallen from about 75% to about 20%, which he tied mostly to the jobs data.
The year started with 2 cuts priced and is ending with 2 hikes
Boockvar said Kevin Warsh was expected to do the president's bidding and cut rates, and instead went his own way with the committee and raised them.
"We know we entered the year, the bond market was pricing in two cuts, and instead we're probably going to get two hikes." — Peter Boockvar
The rest of the yield curve matters more than the Fed's rate
"But the most interesting thing to me is not necessarily what the Fed is doing on the short end — it's what the rest of the yield curve is doing itself, itself being how the market is pricing in the cost of capital." — Peter Boockvar
"And to the point where I do think that the market is leading the Fed rather than the opposite, and the Fed is really just following." — Peter Boockvar
The hike was unanimous, but he said some Fed officials might have opposed it if the market had not pulled the Fed along.
A rate hike does not reach this kind of inflation
He said inflation runs through the whole supply chain, but the question is whether raising the federal funds rate touches its causes. Boockvar did not see why a hike would slow data center construction.
"Is a Fed rate hike going to bring us more crude supply and lower product prices? No." — Peter Boockvar
"I think at the end of the day the Fed is irrelevant to an extent, and that the bond market is going to send the cost of capital not just only on their expectations for inflation, but the bond market is also being driven by rates around the world." — Peter Boockvar
He named Japan's rate increase the previous month and, most recently, Europe.
