On a Monday in late September 2026, American financial markets rose to within a breath of their all-time highs, carried upward by the twin relief of falling oil prices and easing Treasury yields. These movements, small in isolation, carry large meaning: they suggest that the inflation pressures which have shadowed the economy for months may be beginning to relent. Markets are, in this moment, not merely reacting to data — they are expressing a collective hope that the long season of economic tension may be turning.