Rating and slating all the Fed chair candidates

The list of candidates for the Federal Reserve chairmanship keeps getting longer. And longer. And longer.

However, given the potentially huge consequences of the choice, FT Alphaville thought it was worth going through all of them and grading the candidates on a variety of our highly rigorous and proprietary quantamental metrics.

A quick reminder of the Fed’s structure: The US central bank is run by a Board of Governors in DC and the heads of a dozen regional Fed banks in places like Boston, St Louis and Cleveland. Governors are nominated for 14-year terms, and from them the US president nominates one for a four-year term as chair.

Jay Powell’s term as Fed chair ends in May 2026 and it’s pretty safe to assume it won’t be renewed, given President Donald Trump lambasting him as a “stubborn MORON”, a “numbskull”, a “disaster”, and a “dummy”.

However, this is probably Trump’s only shot at reshaping the central bank. The president has no power to choose the regional Fed presidents — they are selected by a local board of made up of prominent businesspeople from their respective regions — and there are only two governorships expiring under the current Trump presidency: the one recently vacated by Adriana Kugler and now taken temporarily by Stephen Miran, and Powell’s own governorship, which doesn’t end until January 2028.

As a result, even selecting a headbanger as Fed chair won’t necessarily mean a Trumpist takeover of the US central bank. In fact, Alphaville wouldn’t be surprised if Powell decides to stay on as a Fed governor even after his term as chair ends next May. If so he could function as a sort of “shadow chair” for the mainstream members of the FOMC even if someone else formally holds the title.

On the other hand, it probably isn’t wise to be too sanguine over the dangers. As PGIM Fixed Income’s Gregory Peters told FTAV earlier this summer:

. . . Investors are placing confidence in the structure of the Fed. That the FOMC will hold together. So even if you have someone installed who wants to cut interest rates to zero, there is a committee process that will act as a check and balance.

I believe that. I hope that is true. But one of the lessons we’ve learnt over the past six months is that you can’t take too much comfort in institutional norms. Just because something hasn’t been done before, doesn’t mean they won’t try to do it now. So it does worry me.

Anyway, here are all the names we’ve seen or heard floated, and ranked by their dovishness, their Trumpism and the likelihood of freaking out markets, going from 1 to 5 (ish). As you can see, we are firmly in the world of least-bad options here.

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Scott Bessent

Has apparently taken himself out of the running, but Trump likes a twist, and we suspect Bessent sees a potential Fed chair when looking in the mirror. What better way to snag the job yourself than by being in charge of the search committee?

Plus, with the dim chances for a grandiose Bretton Woods-style “Mar-a-Lago Accord” — which Bessent has said he’d “like to be a part of” — and the usual Trump White House chaos he might fancy a job change sooner rather than later.

Bessent would presumably be extremely dovish and Trump-aligned as Fed chair, but is generally seen as one of the more competent and sober Trump officials. There are certainly worse candidates on this list.

On the other hand, Bessent’s criticisms of the Fed have been pretty shrill and norm-defying, and he has said that he is “aware” of how Henry Morgenthau Jr served as both Treasury secretary and Fed chair in the 1930s. If something like that is attempted then the market reaction would be . . . interesting.

Dovishness: 🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️

Trumpism: 🍊🍊🍊🍊

Freakout potential: 🤮🤮 (🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮 if the Fed and Treasury jobs are combined)

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Chris Waller

Waller is a sitting Fed governor since 2020, a former head of research at the St Louis Fed, a monetary policy specialist and a Trump 1.0 appointee, and is now the leading candidate for the Fed chairmanship.

His dovish shift has certainly helped his cause in the White House.

The pretty obviously cynical jump from advocating for “more caution” on rate cuts in the autumn of 2024 to suddenly being the FOMC’s leading dove might have dinged his credibility, but Waller has been able to couch the reversal in semi-credible macroeconomic terms.

He is easily the favoured candidate of most investors, given his chops. And despite his overt keenness on the job, Waller would probably be welcomed by most of the Fed’s staffers as well, given some of the other candidates on the White House’s list.

Dovishness: 🕊️🕊️🕊️

Trumpism: 🍊

Freakout potential: 🤮

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David Zervos

Yes. Really. In fact, the chief market strategist at Jefferies is at pixel time the 4th favourite on Kalshi, the betting market.

Zervos would unquestionably bring more flair and hair to the Fed chairmanship, and he does have some pedigree as a former Fed economist and hedge fund manager at the likes of Brevan Howard. He’s also been getting close to the Magasphere through his friendship with Kellyanne Conway, which could be a big help if he wants the big job.

But this feels like one of those rumours floated about just to generate attention, and Trump seems to want a Fed chair who actually looks like a Fed chair.

Dovishness: 🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️

Trumpism: 🍊🍊🍊

Freakout potential: 🤮🤮🤮🤮

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Kevin Hassett

Hassett was once mostly famous for co-writing the bestselling 1999 book Dow 36,000 — once dubbed “perhaps the most spectacularly wrong investing book ever” — but is now primarily known as Trump’s premier economist cheerleader.

On paper he seems like a credible candidate for Fed chair. Hassett has a PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, stints at the Fed’s research division and the Treasury under the first Bush and Clinton administrations, followed by a long residency at the American Enterprise Institute.

He then served as chair of the Council of Economic Advisors in the first Trump presidency.

However, the increasing extremity of his Trump sycophancy has unnerved a lot of investors and analysts, even as it has made him one of the frontrunners for the gig as chair of the US central bank. His modelling skills need work though.

Dovishness: 🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️

Trumpism: 🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊

Freakout potential: 🤮🤮🤮

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Kevin Warsh

Warsh has been a frontrunner for Trump’s Fed chair for almost a decade, having narrowly lost out to Jay Powell back in 2017.

Once again, the CV looks plausible. Warsh briefly worked as an investment banker at Morgan Stanley, but then served on the National Economic Council under George W Bush, who then nominated him for a Fed governorship in 2006 despite just being 35 years old at the time.

During the global financial crisis he proved an able sidekick to Fed chair Ben Bernanke, who said in his memoirs that Warsh was one of his “most frequent companions on the endless conference calls through which we shaped our crisis-fighting strategy”.

However, many investors and economists who Alphaville has spoken to are unimpressed by his candidacy. They say the reality is that he is a lightweight, instinctive hawk who has desperately tried to reinvent himself as a dovish Trump devotee to win a job that on pure merit he probably shouldn’t be anywhere near.

But he’s married to the daughter of Trump megadonor and fellow Greenland fan Ronald Lauder, and he’s got that central casting look that the president is fond of, so obviously he’s one of the leading contenders.

Dovishness: 🕊️ / 🕊️🕊️🕊️ (because, really, who knows for sure)

Trumpism: 🍊🍊🍊

Freakout potential: 🤮🤮

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Stephen Miran

The chatter is that he is just a temporary placement on the board — holding a seat warm in case Trump decides he wants an outsider and needs a governor slot to get them in — but it seems weird to discount him.

After all, Miran’s Trumpist bona fines are impeccable, and his Harvard PhD in economics gives him the of intellectual credentials needed (though Harvard PhDs are clearly not the marker of intellect that they once were).

We covered what a Miran Fed might look like earlier this week. Suffice to say he probably isn’t the favourite candidate of investors. Miran might not be able to convince his FOMC colleagues to slash rates immediately, but his longer-term vision of a more supine accountable Fed is more than a little unnerving.

Dovishness: 🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️

Trumpism: 🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊

Freakout potential: 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

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Miki Bowman

Waller is generally seen as the leading “internal” candidate, but Bowman has also been making noticeably dovish coos lately that means she might be in the mix. Or at least is very keen to be in it.

A speech to the Kansas Bankers Association last week screamed “how do you say you want to be Trump’s Fed chair without actually saying you want to be Trump’s Fed chair”. She also joined Waller in voting for an interest rate cut at the July FOMC meeting.

However, despite being a Trump appointee from 2018 and being elevated to vice-chair for banking supervision by the new Trump administration earlier this year, Bowman seems a long shot.

If the president decides to go with a semi-normal, markets-soothing candidate there are stronger monetary policy types on the list, and if he wants an “own the libs” headbanger then a steady former Kansas banking commissioner seems a bad fit.

Dovishness: 🕊️🕊️🕊️

Trumpism: 🍊🍊

Freakout potential: 🤮🤮

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Jim Bullard

One of the wild cards thrown into the mix recently. Bullard would come with impeccable Fed chair credentials, as the former head of the St Louis Fed between 2008 and 2023 and a reputation as a smart, bellwether FOMC voter.

He’s now the dean of Purdue University’s business school, but definitely seems keen on the gig. While stressing the importance of an independent Fed, the dollar’s reserve status and low and stable inflation on a CNBC interview yesterday, Bullard also said that he didn’t think tariffs would be inflationary and argued that the Fed could, should and will cut interest rates.

If Bessent called all the shots we could easily see Bullard as a frontrunner, but there’s only one person in the White House who truly matters, and Bullard seems an odd fit for a Trump Fed chair.

Dovishness: 🕊️🕊️

Trumpism: 🍊

Freakout potential: 🤮

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Marc Sumerlin

Another old-school Republican economist who has suddenly appeared out of nowhere to be on the longlist of candidates.

Alphaville has to admit that we’re not familiar with his work, but Wikipedia informs us that he was deputy director of George W Bush’s National Economic Council and has since 2013 run his own economic consulting firm (which the WSJ says has worked with Bessent in the past).

Intriguingly, it seems he was tapped up to be a Fed governor by the first Trump administration, but declined to put his name forward. His views are hard to know, so the below assessment is based entirely on vibes.

Dovishness: 🕊️🕊️

Trumpism: 🍊

Freakout potential: 🤮🤮 (though really who knows)

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Judy Shelton

We’re including Shelton because she makes the top 10 probable candidates on Kalshi, with an implied 3 per cent chance of getting the nod at the time of writing.

We really really hope that is far too high, but this is 2025, so ¯_ (ツ)_/¯

To give a sense of Shelton’s vibe, it was reportedly being paired with her as Fed governor nominees that caused Sumerlin to refuse his nomination in 2019.

She’s mostly known as a goldbug with . . . unorthodox views on monetary policy in general and the Fed in particular. She was an uber-hawk until ca 2am ET on November 9, 2016, when she underwent a magical metamorphosis into an uber-dove. Her candidacy for Fed governor was so controversial that over 100 prominent US economists — including seven Nobel laureates and 79 former Fed officials — sent an open letter to the Senate begging it not to confirm her.

She still only narrowly failed to make it.

Dovishness: 🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️

Trumpism: 🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊

Freakout potential: 🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮🤮

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Lorie Logan

By far one of the more intriguing names that has been leaked out in recent days.

Logan is a career Fed official who is currently the head of the Dallas Fed, after having headed the New York Fed’s System Open Market Account desk — which is tasked with handling the central bank’s balance sheet and interest rates machinery.

So although she’s contributed to the decline of economics PhDs at the Fed, Logan would come with sterling credentials when it comes to the practical sides of monetary policy. Her speeches on quantitative tightening are must-reads [all speeches on quantitative tightening are must-reads — Ed].

Still, she hasn’t voted to cut interest rates this year, which we suspect is going to be the main thing Trump looks for in his nominees.

Dovishness: 🕊️

Trumpism: 🍊

Freakout potential: 🤮

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Philip Jefferson

The Fed’s current vice chair has apparently also made the Trump administration’s expanding list of possible candidates, but this seems an even longer shot than Logan.

Firstly, Jefferson was appointed by Joe Biden, which seems to be an automatic red flag for Trump these days. Secondly, he has consistently voted with and voiced support for the Powell’s monetary policy strategy, which is not the way to endear yourself with the current White House incumbent.

Thirdly, although Jefferson’s monetary policy expertise is unquestionable — he’s a former Fed staffer and economics professor — he is also known as an expert on poverty and inequality. That is probably another immediate disqualifier for the Trump administration.

Dovishness: 🕊️

Trumpism: 🍊

Freakout potential: 🤮

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Rick Rieder

Named by CBNC alongside Zervos this morning, and probably has the same (low) chances of getting the Fed job.

Although we can see the likes of Bessent favouring someone with oodles of financial experience like Rieder — he’s chief investment officer for global fixed income at BlackRock — it feels like the administration is now just throwing out the names of anyone somewhat credible who has voiced support for lower interest rates. And he’s probably too sensible to accept it, even if offered.

On the other hand, at BlackRock Rieder “only” manages $2.4tn. At the Fed he’d have $6.6tn to handle.

Dovishness: 🕊️🕊️

Trumpism: 🍊

Freakout potential: 🤮🤮

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Larry Lindsey

OK this is now just getting silly. Alphaville suspects that the growing list is driven by 1) encouraging more people to publicly call for interest rate cuts by dangling a big job in front of them, 2) adding competent but unlikely candidates to make the exercise seem more rigorous and confer legitimacy to the loons included, and 3) to massage some egos.

Lindsey’s inclusion seems to be a mix of the last two. He has all the usual qualifiers — Harvard PhD in economics, serious stints at Treasury under Reagan and both Bushes, and most importantly a Fed governorship from 1991 to 1997 — but still feels like room filler.

Dovishness: 🕊️🕊️

Trumpism: 🍊🍊

Freakout potential: 🤮

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Bill Pulte

Dovishness: 🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️🕊️

Trumpism: 🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊

Freakout potential: