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Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen speaks during a press conference after the Federal Open Market Committee meetings in Washington, DC, on September 20, 2017.
As we head into the fourth quarter of the year, some big decisions are coming up for President Donald Trump and one of them may shake up global markets for years to come.
Trump told reporters last week that he will be announcing who his pick for the next Federal Reserve chair is by the end of October.
Janet Yellen’s term expires in February 2018 and it is unclear whether she will be re-appointed given how critical Trump was of her during the campaign trail. It’s also unclear whether she would accept a reappointment in the first place, though there are reports that she met with Ivanka Trump for an informal breakfast back in July.
Towards the end of July, Trump told the Wall Street Journal that Yellen is in fact doing a “good job” and may still be in the running to stay on as Fed chair. This hasn’t stopped the market from trying to guess who the new head of the world’s most influential central bank may be.
So far the top names put forward for the role are ex-Fed member Kevin Warsh (currently polling 47 percent on Predictit.org) and current Fed Governor Jerome Powell (31 percent). Powell is said to be favored by Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin.
Senior economic advisor Gary Cohn (11 percent) — who was once the bookmakers’ favorite for the role — seems to have lost momentum following comments he made after the Charlottesville riots that indirectly criticized his boss.
