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The Federal Reserve is poised to moderate tightening, Sam Bankman-Fried fights extradition and Elon Musk is no longer the world’s richest pe [View in browser]( [Bloomberg]( The Federal Reserve is poised to moderate tightening, Sam Bankman-Fried fights extradition and Elon Musk is no longer the world’s richest person. - [Heather Burke]( Fed Day The Federal Reserve is poised to moderate its aggressive tightening on Wednesday while signaling that interest rates will ultimately go higher than previously forecast. Economists [surveyed]( by Bloomberg see the median estimate peaking at 4.9% after Powell said the central bank will need to lift rates higher than previously anticipated. Meanwhile, annual headline inflation in the US for November [came in]( at 7.1%, lower than expected. FTX-tradition Sam Bankman-Fried faces up to [115 years in prison]( if he’s convicted on all eight charges filed by the US Department of Justice on Tuesday — though he’s unlikely to be sentenced to that long a term. The Bahamas-based FTX founder indicated he would [fight extradition]( to the US. Federal prosecutors moved at [warp speed]( to charge Bankman-Fried, defying expectations that a criminal case over the cryptocurrency exchange’s collapse would take months or even years to build. The charges against him include wire fraud and conspiracy to commit securities fraud. [Binance](, the world’s largest crypto exchange, sought to counter concerns about outflows by reiterating its position that user assets are underpinned by reserves. New Rich(est) The world has a new a richest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index. Bernard Arnault, the French tycoon who's behind LVMH, displaced Elon Musk, and now [heads the list]( of the world's wealthiest for the first time. Musk, who was once worth $340 billion, has seen his [fortune slip]( by $100 billion since January. Aggressive Fed tightening to curb inflation has led to a slashing in valuations of companies such as Musk's Tesla, whose share price has fallen almost 60% since the start of the year. Stocks stall The rally in US futures [stalled]( as traders geared for the Fed decision. S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 contracts were little changed as of 5:35 a.m. New York time. Meanwhile, the dollar extended its post-CPI declines, while Treasuries rallied for a second day. The yield on 10-year Treasuries fell one basis point to below 3.5%. In Europe, the Stoxx 600 slipped 0.6% as all sectors declined, barring energy. Gold and Bitcoin were fairly muted and oil rose. To catch up on the trading day in the UK and Europe, [check out today’s edition of City Latest.]( Coming up... At 2 p.m., all eyes will be on the Fed decision, with Powell’s press conference to follow 30 minutes later. Before that, at 7 a.m. we’ll get the latest data on US mortgage applications, followed by November import and export price index data and oil inventory figures at 10: 30 a.m. Lennar and Nordson report earnings. What we've been reading Here's what caught our eye over the past 24 hours. - Dorsey calls attacks on ex-Twitter employees “[dangerous](”. - Tesla stock]( has never been this cheap. - [Long Covid]( killed more than 3,500 Americans. - [UK inflation]( eases. - Rolls Royce, Ferrari, Rimac: the [best cars]( of 2022. - Sweden sets [Europe’s security]( as a top task. - [Messi]( leads Argentina to final. And finally, here’s what Joe’s interested in this morning Hello and Happy Fed Day. The expectation is for a 50 basis-point hike, which would be a downshift after a series of 75s. In the meantime, let's go back a day for a second. Yesterday we got a much cooler than expected CPI report. The core measure rose just 0.2% vs. expectations of 0.3% month-over-month. Other measures also came in nicely below estimates. Not surprisingly, stocks exploded higher when the data dropped. At some point, S&P futures were up well over 3%. But by the end of the day, the rally was totally erased. So the question I'm wondering about is: are investors still concerned about inflation? Because if it they were still worried about inflation, you would think the cool report would be good for a big rally. Instead the effect was extremely short-lived. Again it reminds me of the jobs report from two Fridays ago, which I've brought up a couple of times. Initially stocks sold off on that hotter-than-expected wage number. Instead, the selloff only lasted for a few minutes, before stocks rebounded. Now one possibility for yesterday is that investors, over the course of the day, took a second look at the data, and concluded that it was not as cool as it looked at first blush. That's possible. That being said, where we have seen a durable move is in rates. Two-year yields fell sharply after the release, and for the most part this move was sustained. As of the moment I'm typing this, the 2-year is back below 4.20%. The 3m-2 year spread is heading deeper into inversion, which, again, signals rate cuts in the relatively near future.  All this is to say, it looks like some baton is being passed here, where fears about inflation have dissipated, while concerns about recession start to pick up. A hot wage number didn't cause a big selloff. A cool CPI report didn't create a big rally. Meanwhile, short-term rates grind lower, with marginally more cutting being priced in. Follow Bloomberg's Joe Weisenthal on Twitter [@TheStalwart]( Follow Us Like getting this newsletter? [Subscribe to Bloomberg.com]( for unlimited access to trusted, data-driven journalism and subscriber-only insights. 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