Federal Reserve Chairman Powell Holds Final FOMC Press Conference
Jerome Powell held his final press conference as Chairman after the FOMC meeting on April 29, 2026, with his term ending on May 15.
Powell stated he will continue to serve as a Federal Reserve Governor for a while, and Kevin Warsh has been advanced by the Senate Banking Committee as the next chairman.
Market traders are adjusting their expectations for Federal Reserve policy, shifting funds from Powell's era interest rate path to potential easing or uncertainty trades under the new chairman, favoring assets benefiting from Trump-era policies and risk assets, while traditional defenders of Fed independence are under pressure.
Source: Public Information
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Jerome Powell has experienced a complete cycle from crisis management to a "soft landing" since taking over as chairman in 2018, including rate cuts in 2019, unlimited QE during the pandemic from 2020 to 2022, and aggressive rate hikes from 2022 to 2023 to combat inflation, while maintaining relative independence under pressure from Trump in 2025-2026.
During his tenure, Powell guided trillions of dollars in flows between bonds, stocks, and commodities through forward guidance and balance sheet management. The market has already priced in the potential policy shift that Kevin Warsh's succession may bring, with investors reallocating through interest rate futures and assets like gold, while the Fed's balance sheet remains at a high level affecting long-term liquidity expectations.
Similar to the end of the high inflation era under Volcker or Greenspan's long tenure, Powell is at a midpoint in the Fed's transition from "post-pandemic inflation management" to "policy adjustments under a new administrative environment," with the confirmation process for Warsh accelerating.
This essentially represents a regulatory change: the traditional mechanism of Fed chair terms dominated by technical independence has been disrupted by political appointments and public pressure, with Powell's data-dependent decision-making path potentially replaced by the new chairman's fiscal coordination style, reconstructing monetary policy from "central bank autonomy" to an "administrative-market game" execution mechanism.