Weekly Update
April 27, 2026
Upcoming Events
Tuesday, April 28
FOMC Meeting
Money Stock Measures Release
Wednesday, April 29
FOMC Meeting and Press Conference
GDPNow Update
Thursday, April 30
Gross Domestic Product Release
Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index Release
Employment Cost Index Release
GDPNow Update
Friday, May 1
GDPNow Update
Recent News
Hear me out… Prospective Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh appeared before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs last week. He was very critical of post-pandemic monetary policy:
Once you let inflation take hold in an economy, it’s more expensive and harder to bring it down. And so the fatal policy error, going back five years, is still a legacy that we are dealing with. We need, in my judgement, fundamental policy reforms to fix it. And while it’s true that inflation is less problematic, meaning the rate of change in prices is less severe than it was some years ago, hardworking Americans are no doubt feeling it.
Warsh said the Fed needs “a new framework, new tools, and […] new communications.”
Ranking member Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) made much about Warsh’s potential financial conflicts. She said Warsh had “refused to disclose to ethics officials and to the public” more than $100 million in investments.
At issue are private investment vehicles, including the Juggernaut Fund and THSDFS LLC. Although Warsh disclosed that he held these funds, confidentiality agreements prevented him from disclosing the assets held by those funds. To comply with the disclosure requirements, Warsh entered into an agreement with the Office of Government Ethics whereby he would divest the holdings within 90 days of being confirmed.
At the hearing, Warsh suggested he is doing much more than is required:
…so that there is no question about my independence, no question about the clarity of my financial record, I agreed to divest virtually all of my financial assets, the large majority of which will be divested before I raise my right hand and be sworn into office if confirmed by this body. So I’ve gone above and beyond, not for any special reason other than the Fed needs to reestablish its credibility—because the conduct of policy depends on it.
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) used his time to explain that he would not vote to confirm Warsh until the Department of Justice dropped its criminal investigation into current Chair Jerome Powell.
On Friday, U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro announced that she had asked the Inspector General for the Federal Reserve to look into the building costs overruns and directed her office to close the investigation.
On Sunday, Tillis said he would “take the Department of Justice at its word”:
With these assurances, I look forward to supporting Kevin Warsh’s confirmation. He is an outstanding nominee, and it is time for the Federal Reserve to move beyond this distraction and return its full attention to its mission.
Forward guidance… The Federal Open Market Committee is expected to leave its policy rate unchanged at this week’s meeting. The federal funds rate target range has stood at 3.5 to 3.75 percent since December 2025. The CME Group currently puts the odds of a rate change in either direction at less than 1.0 percent.