If people still had questions in their mind this morning about whether President Trump would nominate Fed chair Janet Yellen for another term, they were probably cleared up when she gave her speech on financial stability.
In her address to the gathering of central bankers in Jackson Hole, Yellen challenged the Trump administration’s priority of deregulation, stressing the importance of reforms that were put in place during the financial crisis.
“Any adjustments to the regulatory framework should be modest and preserve the increase in resilience at large dealers and banks associated with the reforms put in place in recent years,” she said.
“The balance of research suggests that the core reforms we have put in place have substantially boosted resilience without unduly limiting credit availability or economic growth.”
Yellen’s remarks come after an interview with Gary Cohn, widely considered to be a top candidate for next Fed chair, suggested he had considered resigning over Trump’s response to Charlottesville. After this morning’s speech from Yellen, his decision to stick around looks even more likely to pay off.
The S&P 500 held on to gains after her speech for much of the afternoon before falling to close up just 0.17%.