Watch Live: Fed Chair Warsh Desperately Tries To Explain Why His ‘Pause’ Is Not Political

Warsh will be walking a very fine tightrope in today’s press conference that looks especially delicate.

The Fed Chair’s problem today is that he’s spent the last few months telling everyone the Fed needs a “timelier return to 2%”, and then September’s CPI came in hot, and he’s about to skip anyway.

While the pause decision was entirely expected and priced-in, the explanation is the hard part.

The decision lands less than a week before midterms in which the cost of living is a central issue.

Warsh cannot acknowledge that a hike right now would have been politically radioactive – signaling that inflation is still not under control and potentially tightening financial conditions further into an election focused on affordability – without undercutting the Fed’s claim to independence.

So the first reporter to ask “what will you know in December that you don’t know today, other than the election result?” will get a long answer about data dependence and “optionality”.

That answer is a little easier to sell as we only got two dissents (and one of them was Lisa Cook..!) who joined Hammack, meaning Logan and Kashkari (who dissented previously) are back in the stead fold.

We expect the familiar Fed playbook: one hot print isn’t a trend; policy works with “long and variable lags”; the committee wants to see October data before acting; and, most usefully, December is fully-priced, so the Fed can argue it is guiding toward a hike rather than refusing one.

In other words, the market has already done the tightening for him.

The trouble is that every one of those arguments was available a month ago, and the real awkwardness is that none of those explanations can fully dispel the calendar. 

The tell will be how hard he leans on December: the more explicitly he pre-commits to a hike, the more obvious it becomes that the only thing stopping him today was the calendar.

The Fed did add this sentence to the statement which suggests the ol’ ‘need more info’ excuse will come into play…

“The accumulation of more information will help the Committee determine the policy stance appropriate to ensure a timely return of inflation”.

JPMorgan’s Mike Feroli summed it up well:

“A decision to leave rates unchanged less than a week before the midterm elections that goes unexplained would only encourage thoughts that policy is being driven by considerations other than employment and inflation.”

For once, the presser will be fun to watch (due to start at 1430ET):