On Wednesday, October 28, 2026 FOMC Chair Kevin Warsh gave the scheduled October 2026 FOMC Press Conference. (link of video and related materials)
Below are Kevin Warsh’s comments I found most notable – although I don’t necessarily agree with them – in the order they appear in the transcript. These comments are excerpted from the “Transcript of Chair Warsh’s Press Conference“ (preliminary)(pdf) of October 29, 2026, with the accompanying “FOMC Statement” dated October 29, 2026.
Excerpts from Chair Warsh’s opening comments:
This morning the FOMC decided to maintain the target rate for the federal funds rate at 3¾ to 4 percent, in support of the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate.
Economic activity is expanding at a strong pace. While uncertainty remains—owing, in part, to geopolitical developments—domestic spending has been resilient. Productivity growth is strong, and capital investment robust. Job gains have kept pace with the workforce, and the unemployment rate has changed little.
But inflation remains elevated. The Committee believes that the accumulation of more information will help it determine the policy stance appropriate to ensure a timely return of inflation to the 2 percent goal. The Committee will deliver price stability.
Excerpts of Kevin Warsh’s responses as indicated to various questions:
COLBY SMITH. Colby Smith with the New York Times. There’s been essentially no progress toward the 2 percent inflation target. The labor market remains stable as you suggested in your opening statement, and most of your colleagues seem to be on board with raising rates in December. So why not just raise rates today?
CHAIRMAN WARSH. So it’s a good question. I will say I read your stories the last day or two, so I must admit I sort of saw that question coming. What I said in my prepared statement was information coming in the coming period will help us tell us where we want to be, but I suspect you want a little more than that. So let me give it a shot. Ensuring price stability, Colby, quashing inflation is not about some fixed individual date on a calendar. Same way it’s not about some isolated data point. If it were about those two things, this job would be easier, and we wouldn’t be suffering from nearly six years of inflation above target. So what’s this about? It’s about ensuring we have clear objectives and it’s about a monetary policy strategy, which might sound to your ear, and others, like a change from the last several years. So let me step back. In the five months or so that I’ve been around, we’ve put in place what I describe as new monetary medicine. Well what’s been in that package of medicine? The first thing we did when we showed up, with my colleagues, is we doubled down on the 2 percent inflation target. We said, we own it, we’re taking responsibility for it, and if you think that we’re tolerating some inflation target somewhere in the 2’s, let us disabuse you of it. That was the first part of this new monetary medicine. Second part is we took responsibility, no anguish of central banking here, no blaming others. So the third thing that we’ve done, we laid out for you and the world our framework. I did it in Jackson Hole. It was part of the discussion the last couple days. It is the framework that many of my colleagues hew to as well. This is how we think about how monetary policy should work. These are the transmission mechanisms. And this is how we’re going to deliver. Then what do we do? We interrogate reality. We do that periodically. That’s a very useful thing to do. But we don’t just talk, we act. And so in September when we last met, we acted. We removed a dose of accommodation. So what are the signposts about how this new strategy is going? Inflation compensation as measured by swaps prices, many other measures, inflation compensation is going in the right way. Inflation expectations, the world is quite unsettled. If you’d say absent the Fed, what would have happened to expectations, they might have gone the wrong way. They’ve gone the right way too. So I feel good about those signposts. The period right in front of us is information rich. There is a lot that’s happening in the world. My colleagues and I are keen to take notice of it. So in this coming period, what do I think we’re going to be able to do? We’re going to be able to figure out what’s the appropriate protocol as part of this package that we started to deliver five months ago, to deliver price stability. I’m encouraged by the progress we’ve made in a short period of time. But if the crux of your question is, you haven’t delivered yet, you haven’t achieved price stability, you’re right about that. But we’re working on it.
also:
EDWARD LAWRENCE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Edward Lawrence with Fox Business. So do you see a direct line correlation between oil prices and the inflation we’re seeing in the United States? And if so, how fast could inflation fall or react to falling oil prices?
CHAIRMAN WARSH. So I don’t want to engage in hypotheticals, but I can look out our window and see what’s happened. There have been a stable correlation between oil prices as they’ve moved up this year, generally, and interest rates. Not the interest rates that we control, but interest rates set in the market. That correlation has been quite strong, until very recently where you’ve seen oil prices continue to move up, largely due to geopolitical events. We’ve seen crack spreads between oil and refined products continue to stay elevated. But what’s happened? Interest rates have rolled over to the downside. I — not a Wall Street newsletter, I’m just telling you when I look out the window over the last several months, that is what we’ve seen. To the extent that oil prices were to move lower, again, probably due to geopolitical events, that’s something that we’re going to have to interrogate. What are the effects on the Fed’s dual mandate? What are the effects on financial market prices, and what are we going to do about it? But that’s a hypothetical, and in fact, if we look at financial market prices, futures prices for oil, they’ve moved up over the course of the last several weeks, and I can’t help but take note of that too.
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The Special Note summarizes my overall thoughts about our economic situation
SPX at 7714.97 as this post is written
