Rates (the Fed)

I continue to believe in my very simple theme. After the July meeting (where the market has already given the Fed the green light to hike 25 bps):

The Fed has a high hurdle to hike again this year.

The Fed has an extremely high hurdle to cut this year.

The Fed (unless they do something new with their balance sheet reduction program) should largely be "a non-event" for the rest of this year. Yes, occasionally markets will move as the Fed messaging (or jawboning) changes tone, but unless the data comes in decidedly bad or good for an extended period of time (2 or more months), they are going to try to be on hold.

The volatility being priced into the bond market seems too high relative to equities

Traditionally, the two move in the same direction in somewhat similar orders of magnitude. Since the Fed started their hiking cycle, bond market implied volatility has been much higher than stock market volatility.