Fed Finds Fed Did Nothing Wrong

In what is likely the least surprising news headline of the day, The Federal Reserve’s Watchdog has cleared Chair Jerome Powell and former Vice Chair Richard Clarida of any wrongdoing in their trading activity.

“We did not find evidence to substantiate the allegations that former Vice Chair Clarida or you violated laws, rules, regulations, or policies related to trading activities as investigated by our office,” Inspector General Mark Bialek said in a letter to Powell dated June 11 and published Thursday.

Powell’s wife knew nothing…

We found that your spouse, as trustee of the Powell family trust, notified the trust financial advisor of the need to make funds available for charitable donations each December during the time period we reviewed. On December 9, 2019, your spouse notified the financial advisor that the trust would be writing charitable donation checks and requested to be informed when the funds became available. The trust financial advisor had noted the blackout period on the financial advisory team’s calendar prior to executing the trades, but executed the five trades on December 11, 2019. The trust financial advisor subsequently acknowledged that executing the trades during the blackout period was an “oversight” on the team’s part. We found no evidence that you or your spouse had contemporaneous knowledge that the five transactions were executed during the blackout period. As such, we found that you did not violate the FOMC trading blackout rule.

Former Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren and former Dallas Fed President Robert Kaplan are still under investigation…

Kaplan sold at just the right time pic.twitter.com/rNbiXDCHYr

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) September 10, 2021

Full IG letter below: