"Honey, I shrunk the minutes."
That's how Steve Englander from Standard Chartered is describing this week's release of minutes from the Fed's June meeting, the first under Kevin Warsh.
"Warsh explicitly avoided policy guidance in the statement and press conference, so it seems unlikely that he would permit such guidance via the minutes," writes Englander, head of G-10 foreign-exchange research at the bank.
Englander's prediction chimes with the way that Warsh, who spent more than a decade arguing that the Fed should say less, has approached his new post so far. The central bank's policy statement in June clocked in at just 132 words, down from 345 in April.
But as my colleagues have explained, more circumspect communication could cause issues. In particular, Englander said that by avoiding any discussion of rate hikes, Warsh risks signaling to the market that he is reluctant to act.
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