August 2026 - The Headline Was Wrong | |
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Dewey Defeats Truman... Oh Wait! | The most famous wrong headline in American history was not a lie. It was a guess that ran out of time.
On November 3, 1948, Harry Truman held up a copy of the Chicago Daily Tribune for photographers in St. Louis. DEWEY DEFEATS TRUMAN, it read. We all now know who actually won.
The mistake is usually blamed on the newspaper. The more interesting failure happened months earlier. The major polling firms had stopped surveying voters that fall, some as early as September, because the outcome looked settled. They had a result they believed, so they quit collecting information.
That instinct is still with us. Psychologists call it premature closure, the moment we decide we know enough and stop asking. It feels like confidence. Usually it is just fatigue.
We do this with money constantly. We decide what kind of investor we are and stop revisiting it. We settle on a retirement number in our fifties and never test it again. We form a view of the economy and then read only what confirms it. The decision gets made once, and then it quietly runs the next twenty years on autopilot.
This month offered a reminder of how much can change after we stop looking. The government reported job losses in July and revised the two prior months down by a combined 103,000. Second-quarter growth slowed to 1.5%, which reads like weakness until you find that household and business spending inside it actually accelerated. The picture we had in the spring is not the picture that survived the summer.
None of that changes what your family needs money to do. But it should change how often you check.
That is what Purpose-Built Planning really is: a commitment to keep counting. It begins with what you are trying to accomplish - the retirement date, the tuition bill, the business transition, the legacy - and then returns to it deliberately, aligning your investment, tax, and planning decisions as the facts move. Not because the plan was wrong, but because the world keeps voting.
The Tribune went to press before the country finished voting.
You have considerably more time than that.
Visit lecontewealth.com to learn how Purpose-Built Planning helps turn intention into lasting progress. | | | |
| | When the Traders Come Back from the Hamptons | The last weekend of August, the Little River in Townsend is wall to wall inner tubes. Ten days later the tubes are stacked and chained, the water is the same temperature, and you can hear the river again. Wall Street runs that calendar in reverse - desks are thin in August, and when everyone comes back after Labor Day, the volume and the volatility come back with them.
September is historically the worst month of the year for all three major indexes. In a midterm year, it's worse than that. And there's one more statistic about August record highs that fits 2026 uncomfortably well.
None of that is a reason to do anything. Click here to read what the rest of the four-year cycle has historically looked like - and why most of what's coming this fall is a bond story, not a stock story. | | | | | |
| | Trump Accounts: Where Do They Actually Fit? | Trump Accounts became available on July 4, and nearly all of the attention has gone to one number - the $1,000 federal seed contribution for children born between 2025 and 2028. Anytime someone offers free money, it's worth paying attention.
But that money doesn't show up automatically. And a $1,000 head start doesn't tell you where this account belongs next to the 529, the custodial account, or a child's Roth - because those three don't solve the same problem.
Click here to read how Trump Accounts are actually taxed, the step families have to complete to claim the government's contribution, and the question I'd ask before opening any account for a child. | | | | | |
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Recently Published On Financial Friction | | |
| | Economy In Focus | The Data: 1.5% / 3.9% – Q2 GDP slowed from 2.1%, while real final sales to private domestic purchasers accelerated from 1.7% Â
-23,000 – July payrolls declined; May and June were revised down by a combined 103,000 2.5% – Core CPI cooled to its slowest annual pace since March 2021, headline still 3.4% 5.3% – The 30-year Treasury yield reached its highest level in nearly two decades ~56% – Odds of a September rate hike after Warsh's Jackson Hole address, up from roughly 35% the day before
Commentary: August was a month when the numbers disagreed with one another. Then, on the last day, the Fed Chair made them agree.
Start with growth. The economy expanded at a 1.5% annual rate in the second quarter, down from 2.1%, which reads like a slowdown. Look inside and the picture flips. Almost the entire decline came from lower federal spending and weaker exports, while spending by American households and businesses accelerated to 3.9% from 1.7%. Private demand did not weaken this quarter. It strengthened.
The job market told the opposite story. Employers cut 23,000 jobs in July, the first monthly decline in over a year, and the government lowered its May and June counts by a combined 103,000. That dropped the three-month pace of hiring to roughly 20,000 a month. Unemployment fell to 4.1%, which sounds encouraging, but the share of adults working or looking for work has declined 0.7 percentage points since January. A jobless rate falling because people stopped searching is not a strengthening economy, even though the headline reads identically.
Inflation cooperated. Consumer prices rose 0.1% in July and 3.4% over the past year, while core inflation eased to 2.5%, its slowest pace since March 2021. But housing still drives most of the monthly increase, inflation has run above the Fed's 2% goal for more than five years, and wages are growing at only 3.2%. Prices are again rising faster than paychecks.
The bond market is where August got interesting. The 30-year Treasury yield reached 5.3% and the 10-year reached 4.75%, the highest in nearly two decades, pushed there by heavy government borrowing, debt raised to build AI infrastructure, and collapsed talks with Iran that lifted oil near $85 a barrel.
The unusual part was the response. On August 19, the Treasury said it would at least double its purchases of long-term government bonds, which lifts prices and lowers yields. It was the administration's second market intervention in three weeks, following a late-July effort with Japan to support the yen after it fell to a four-decade low. Yields dropped on the announcement, then drifted back within days.
Then Warsh spoke. In his first Jackson Hole address as Chair on August 28, he refused to tell markets what the Fed would do next. What he did say was blunt: the summer's better inflation readings do not convince him the underlying trend has improved, and if the Fed cannot be confident inflation is returning to 2% quickly enough, we have work to do. Odds of a September rate increase jumped from roughly 35% to better than a coin flip, and the 2-year Treasury yield rose to about 4.29%.
And the 30-year fell.
That is the month in one sentence. The Treasury intervened twice to pull long-term yields down and the effect faded in days. The Fed Chair pulled them down with a speech. Those yields were never high because the market lacked buyers. They were high because investors doubted the Fed.
For investors, the September 15–16 meeting is now a genuine question mark. But the more useful lesson is that the two things that actually moved markets, a revision and a speech, were not what anyone was positioned for on August 1. That argues for quality companies, reliable income, and disciplined rebalancing over wagering on what comes next. | | |
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| LeConte In The News | Beau Bushong has been announced as a United Way of Blount County Champion for the 2026 annual campaign. Champions are a group of local business and volunteer-minded professionals selected to serve as active community liaisons, helping drive campaign success, network engagement, and awareness for the organization's mission. Â
Congrats, Beau! | | | | We were proud to have two LeConte Wealth teams participate in the United Way’s 4th Annual Sporting Clays Event! Hoy and Beau represented the firm alongside their teammates for a fun day of friendly competition, fellowship, and supporting a great cause in our community. We’re always grateful for opportunities to get involved and help United Way continue making an impact across Blount County. | | |
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| | Copyright 2026 LeConte Wealth Management, LLC. All Rights reserved. Advisory services offered through LeConte Wealth Management, LLC. an SEC registered investment adviser. |
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