Markets Not Yet Liking Warsh Fed Days

New Fed Chair Warsh is the fourth chair to take over the job since 1994 when the Fed first began announcing policy decisions on the same day as its FOMC meetings.

Warsh's first Fed day came back on June 17th, and the S&P 500 ended up falling more than 1% that day.  As shown below, 6/17 was the worst "first Fed day" for a new Chair going back to 1994.  Notably, the S&P fell on each of the prior three "first Fed days" for Bernanke, Yellen, and Powell, but Warsh's first Fed day now ranks as the biggest drop.

Yesterday was Chair Warsh's second Fed day, and yet again, the S&P fell 1%+.  That was enough to rank as the worst "second Fed day" as well.

Warsh has not started off on the right foot when it comes to stock market performance on Fed days.  While a positive stock market is certainly not the Fed's job, it also won't be something that's overlooked.

Below is a chart showing the average intraday path that the S&P 500 has taken on all Fed days for each chair since 1994.  Bernanke oversaw average one-day gains of 0.5% on Fed days during his tenure.  Greenspan saw gains of 0.26%, while Yellen was at +0.16%.

Chair Powell managed to eke out a small average gain of 0.04% on Fed days during his time as chair, but the market was notoriously weak in the last hour of the trading day following Powell press conferences.

The S&P has averaged a decline of -1.37% on Chair Warsh's first two Fed days, so he now has some work to do to get the number back into positive territory!