FOMC Dissents
I can always count on Merrill's economic team, headed by David Rosenberg, for an interesting data tidbit
or other worthwhile factoid.
Today was no different. Looking at the likelihood of a dissent in todays FOMC vote, they noted: Consider this about FED dissents:
Since the start of Bernanke’s tenure, he has faced dissents at 53% of the FOMC meetings he has chaired. While this may seem like a lot, it is actually quite close to the 56% dissent ratio faced by former Chairman Greenspan in his first five years on the job. Indeed, dissents are normal (Chart 1).
There is one key difference however. Chairman Greenspan frequently faced dissents from Governors with 21 of the 35 dissenting votes, or 60%, during those five years coming from this group (Chart 2). Chairman Bernanke has not had a Governor vote against him yet indicating that he has a more secure voting “bloc” than Greenspan did when he first started. Only if we saw a defection of a Governor would we begin to worry that the dissents will begin to influence policy.
Good stuff . . . charts are below in order of mention above.
Its worth noting that Dallas Fed President Richard Fisher wanted a rate hike, and the market liked the rest of the noise.
>
New Fed Chairs Face Frequent Dissents
Source: Federal Reserve, Merrill Lynch
Greenspan Govs led dissenting votes
Source: Federal Reserve, Merrill Lynch
Source:
Dissenting opinion: no dissent more likely than three
Drew T. Matus
Merrill Lynch 05 August 2008
http://tinyurl.com/feddissents
Tuesday, August 05, 2008 | 03:30 PM | Permalink
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It's interesting how Fisher was the only dissent this time, the Fed didn't change rates one lick, yet everyone is commenting on CNBC how the Fed is soooooo hawkish right now. I get the feeling that the perma-bulls are too afraid to look behind the screen to see the man pulling the strings. How is today's decision so bullish?
HCF
Posted by: HCF | Aug 5, 2008 4:09:33 PM
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