Fed Chair Nominee Janet Yellen to Face Banking Committee This Week

The nominee to chair the Federal Reserve will be questioned by the Senate Banking Committee on Thursday at 10 a.m. Eastern, at a time when markets have changed their tune on when the central bank may start reducing its bond purchases.

Yellen has never been in a hurry to taper, but the jobs data released Friday offer some food for thought.

Over the last year, jobs growth has averaged 194,000 per month — a sign of an economy in which the labor market is making genuine if not rapid progress. To be sure, the 7.3% unemployment rate is still high, but is it high enough to warrant the extra accommodation provided by the central bank’s $85 billion-per-month in asset purchases?

That’s what the market wants to know from her confirmation hearing.

via MarketWatch

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Alfonso Esparza

Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse
Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.
Alfonso Esparza