Investors worry leaner Fed guidance may come at a price

**NEW YORK, Aug. 12 (Reuters)** - Investors are questioning whether Federal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh can successfully unwind decades of communicating its monetary policy intentions without exacting a price from financial markets. While some market participants welcomed recent efforts by the Fed to reduce what they see as excessive focus on Fed messaging, many argued that investors have spent years incorporating its guidance into everything from bond valuations to risk-management models. Investors are next focused on the Fed's annual symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, in late August, a key platform for Warsh to show whether he doubles down on a more restrained communications strategy. "The goal of a central bank isn't to make capital markets more exciting by removing a source of transparency and information," said Alex Morris, chief executive of F/m Investments. "Once you start providing transparency, it's hard for the market to accept that you're just going to take it away." Since Warsh became Fed chairman in 2026, the U.S. central bank has adopted a simpler communications strategy, dropping forward guidance, shortening Federal Open Market Committee statements, and focusing on current economic conditions rather than signaling the future path of interest rates. More recently, the New York Times reported that Warsh raised the idea of reducing the number of the Fed's regularly scheduled meetings where it sets monetary policy. If adopted, that would break with nearly half a century of practice. A Fed spokesperson declined to comment on the possibility of holding fewer meetings or on its strategy of communicating less. The Fed chair has argued that markets have become too dependent on central bank guidance and should pay more attention to economic fundamentals. But investors noted that the Fed itself encouraged that dependence through a half-a-century push toward transparency, including regular press conferences, economic projections, and detailed policy statements. The concern for many investors is not simply that markets would become more volatile. Rather, they are worried that less information from policymakers could make it harder to price risk, pushing up yields and borrowing costs over time. "There is a lot of confusion which is showing up in long-term yields rising, long-term inflation expectations also ticking higher after the last Fed meeting," said Angelo Kourkafas, senior global investment strategist at Edward Jones. "Less information in this case is not necessarily better for markets... because markets are still trying to find out now how the new Fed will respond to the incoming data." In recent sessions, U.S. 30-year yields US30YT=RR have hit their highest in 19 years, while the benchmark 10-year yield US10YT=RR rose to a 20-month peak. Steven Zeng, U.S. rates strategist at Deutsche Bank, said reduced Fed guidance presents a clear trade-off. Fewer meetings and less communication could diminish what he called "unhelpful noise" and make each policy decision more meaningful. ### More compensation for less visibility Investors would likely demand compensation for having less visibility into the Fed's thinking. During any transition to a new framework, "bond yields likely will be higher to commensurate with greater policy uncertainty," Zeng said. That prospect is particularly significant for Treasury markets, where long-term yields incorporate expectations about future inflation, growth, and monetary policy. Several investors said the Fed's communications are so deeply embedded in market pricing that scaling them back could alter how investors value government debt. Even investors open to less Fed guidance say markets would inevitably become more dependent on economic data as they search for clues about policymakers' intentions. "It's not bad for the market to have less meetings and less guidance," said Vishal Khanduja, head of the Broad Markets Fixed Income team at Morgan Stanley Investment Management. But he said investors struggle when policymakers' words and actions diverge. In a world with fewer official signals, markets would have little choice but to infer the policy path directly from inflation, employment and growth data, Khanduja noted. The U.S. consumer price index due for release on Wednesday will be the next key policy test for the market. "The Treasury market will be more volatile around these important data releases because data then becomes the only sole guiding force towards what the future policy should look like," Khanduja said. Anthony Saglimbene, chief market strategist at Ameriprise, said regular policy updates remain essential to keeping market expectations aligned with policymakers' intentions. Still, he said the Fed could likely reduce the number of press conferences while maintaining its current schedule of policy meetings and statements. The broader challenge for the central bank, however, is whether it can persuade markets to give up a level of transparency it spent decades providing. "It seems like every Fed chair gets off to a really bad start and then they've got to figure out a way of doing it," said Eric Kuby, chief investment officer at North Star Investment Management.

Investors worry leaner Fed guidance may come at a price

Investors weigh a less transparent Fed

Markets see a trade-off between less guidance and higher yields

More compensation for less visibility

Data dependence could rise if meetings and press conferences are cut

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