Scott Bessent gets to sit in front of Congress and answer questions about energy prices. The questions will not matter. His answers will not matter. Energy prices will do whatever energy prices were going to do anyway.
Retail traders will watch C-SPAN clips on Twitter and convince themselves they learned something actionable. They didn't. They never do. But they'll open three new positions based on a six-second soundbite about government debt and act surprised when crude oil moves inverse to their genius thesis.
The Federal Reserve policy questions should be fun. Bessent will say words. Senators will nod. The Fed will continue doing exactly what it planned to do before this hearing was scheduled. Everyone pretends monetary policy is a democracy. It's not. Never has been.
Trump's economic agenda will come up because of course it will. Bessent will defend it or deflect it or parse his words like a man walking through a minefield in dress shoes. The S&P will move 0.3% in either direction for reasons completely unrelated to anything said in that room.
Here's what actually happens during Congressional testimony: politicians perform for cameras, appointees recite talking points, and absolutely zero new information enters the marketplace. But some guy in Ohio will watch the whole thing, pull up his Robinhood account, and decide this is finally the catalyst that confirms his XLE calls.
Government debt questions are my favorite. As if the Treasury Secretary is going to stand up and say yeah we're f*cked, sell everything. The debt will keep growing. It always does. Bessent knows it. Congress knows it. The bond market already priced it in six months ago.
Rising energy prices get blamed on policy until they fall, then policy takes credit, then they rise again and everyone pretends the last cycle never happened.
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