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President Joe Biden on Tuesday indicated that his administration is getting closer to announcing a decision on whether to renominate Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell as head of the U.S. central bank.
“That’s in train now. We’ll be making those announcements fairly quickly,” Biden said, as he responded to a reporter’s question about his process for picking a Fed chief and filling other open Fed positions.
The president also said he has been “giving a lot of thought to it,” and his administration is going to have “plenty of time” to get any nominee in place.
“I’ve been meeting with economic advisers on what the best choices are, and we’ve got a lot of good choices,” he told reporters during a news conference at the COP26 climate-change summit in Glasgow, Scotland.
Some analysts who keep tabs on Washington for Wall Street said in September that they’re fairly certain Biden will give Powell a second four-year term.
It’s not clear who Biden is considering for the top Fed post. Speculation has centered on Fed Gov. Lael Brainard and Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic.
Besides making a decision on Powell, whose term ends in February, Biden will be able to fill two more seats. A third open seat isn’t out of the realm of possibility.
The Fed began a two-day policy meeting on Tuesday, and it’s expected to announce Wednesday that a tapering of asset purchases will begin later this month.
U.S. stock benchmarks
SPX,
DJIA,
closed higher Tuesday, with the Dow finishing above 36,000 for the first time, as traders braced for Wednesday’s Fed policy statement.
MarketWatch’s Greg Robb contributed to this report.
