Guggenheim's CIO Sees One Fed Cut Left This Year. Iran Is the Wild Card.

Anne Walsh runs money at Guggenheim Partners. She's not guessing at the macro picture. She's pricing it.

Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, Walsh gave a clean read on where rates, equities, oil, and fixed income are headed. The headline: one more Federal Reserve rate cut in 2025. That's it. Don't build a thesis around multiple cuts.

The Rate Cut Case

Walsh isn't calling for an aggressive easing cycle. One cut. The Fed has been deliberate, and the data hasn't given them reason to move faster. Inflation is sticky enough, growth is resilient enough, and the labor market hasn't broken. One cut reflects a Fed that's managing expectations, not panicking.

For fixed income, that matters. Yields aren't collapsing. Investors pricing in a soft-landing scenario with limited cuts need to position duration accordingly. The easy bond trade from rate peak to rate cut already happened.

Equities and Oil: Iran Is the Variable

Walsh flagged an extended Iran conflict as the primary tail risk to markets right now. That's not a fringe view. It's the variable that breaks the otherwise orderly macro setup.

Oil is the transmission mechanism. A prolonged conflict in that region tightens supply, pushes crude higher, and reintroduces inflation pressure the Fed thought it was done fighting. That scenario delays cuts further. It pressures equity multiples. It complicates everything.

Without that escalation, the equity picture holds. But Walsh isn't dismissing the risk. Neither should you.

What This Means for Traders

• **One cut is the base case.** Any positioning that requires two or three cuts to work is offside. Reprice accordingly.
• **Watch crude as your leading indicator.** If oil breaks higher on Iran escalation, the rate-cut timeline shifts and equities reprice fast.
• **Fixed income isn't a layup here.** Limited cuts mean limited yield compression. Know what you're actually buying.

ChartOdds earnings and macro data tracks how rate environments historically affect sector performance. The setups look different in a one-cut world than a three-cut world.