'Tone Deaf' Powell Leaves Wall Street Dazed by Changing Views
(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, who pledged early in his tenure to speak in “plain English” and improve the central bank’s public communications, is finding it tough to deliver a clear message.
In the latest of several reversals, Powell on Wednesday dismissed the recent deceleration in prices as likely “transitory,” six weeks after he described low inflation as “one of the major challenges of our time’’ risking a Japan-style crisis. The pivot whipsawed financial markets, sending U.S. stocks lower and the dollar higher as traders pared bets that the Fed’s next move would be a rate cut.
The abrupt change in tone highlights the pitfalls of efforts by Powell, 66, to boost transparency. The former private-equity executive doubled the number of annual press conferences this year to eight from the four under predecessors Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke, who were both economics professors.
Last year, Powell described interest rates as a “long way from neutral’’ and the shrinking of the Fed balance sheet as on “autopilot,’’ two declarations he walked back.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/tone-deaf-powell-leaves-wall-street-dazed-by-changing-views/ar-AAAWfHW?li=BBnb7Kz