Bill Dudley

Dear Mr. President,

I am writing to withdraw my name for consideration to be Chairman of the Federal Reserve.

It has been a privilege to work with you since the beginning of your Administration as you led the nation through a severe recession into a sustained economic recovery built on policies to promote employment and strengthen the middle class. This is a complex moment in our national life. I have reluctantly concluded that any possible confirmation process for me would be acrimonious and would not serve the interests of the Federal Reserve, the Administration, or ultimately, the interests of the nation’s ongoing economic recovery. I look forward to continuing to support your efforts to strengthen our national economy by creating a broad based prosperity and to reform our financial system so that no President ever again faces what you and your economic team faced upon taking office in 2009.

Sincerely yours,

Lawrence Summers

With the case for the next Fed chairman having devolved to the most ridiculous of decision trees, such as Nancy Pelosi's "it would be great to have a woman", because apparently gender diversity trumps everything in the eyes of the California democrat, the choice of Bernanke's successor is now more nebulous than ever. It has certainly not been aided by the periodic floating of the Larry Summers trial balloon, especially as originating from the Fed's WSJ mouthpiece who one week presents Summers as the favorite and the next skewers his chances. However, one person for whom the Summers vote is essentially a done deal with 90% odds, is Scotiabank's Guy Haselmann. Here is his logic.

While hardly a surprise, following recent speculative punditry (which failed miserably in forecasting Mark Carney as the next BOE head, something Zero Hedge predicted half a year ahead of the event due to one simple variable - he is from Goldman) and numerous trial balloons on Bernanke's successor coming hot and heavy from every direction, it was time for the Fed's own mouthpiece, Jon Hilsenrath, to speak, and bring back much needed drama and confusion.

Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke's term expires January 31, 2014. While his continuation as Fed chair cannot be ruled out, he has given no public indications that he plans to seek another term and most market participants - as well as many members of Congress in last week's Humphrey-Hawkins hearings - seem to believe he will retire from public service early next year. As Goldman notes, the announcement of the next Chair of the Federal Reserve seems most likely to come in October, though nominations for Fed Chair have been announced as early as five months before the current term expires and as late as less than a month before expiration. There does not appear to be much risk to the Senate's ultimate confirmation of whomever the President chooses, though the Fed nominations have become more politically controversial over the last few years, which is likely to lengthen the confirmation process. Following previous confirmations, financial market volatility has typically increased slightly, though whether this occurs following the upcoming transition will of course depend on who is nominated.

If indeed the administration had floated a trial balloon with Larry Summers' Fed Chairman candidacy, it appears to have been full of lead. Moments ago Fed mouthpiece Hilsenrath just undid the disturbance in the farce with an article that promptly crushes Larry's chances as Bernanke's replacement, instead putting Janet Yellen up as the "front-runner for the top fed post."

Jan Hatzius' assessment of Bernanke's first congressional testimony was just released. We assume it was not written while he was having lunch with Bill Dudley at the Pound and Pence.

And now for something completely different. Citi's Willem Buiter is best known for his exhaustive, often times fatalistic outlook on Europe (he will ultimately be right about the Grexit, and Spexit, and ultimately Dexit, the only problem is so will Meredith Whitney about the state of the US municipals - eventually). It appears there may have been a reason for his dour outlook on life: a sexy stalker as it turns out. A sexy, but very demented stalker.

Tuesday humor struck early, courtesy of Goldman's head of the New York Fed, Bill dudley:

• DUDLEY SAYS FED AT TIMES WAS `TOO OPTIMISTIC' ON FORECASTS

That in itself is not the humor. The humor is, as always the context. Such as this:

• DUDLEY SEES STRONG CASE GROWTH TO PICK UP 'NOTABLY' IN 2014

Now that is funny when one considers the following past headlines...

The first news overnight came from the RBA which kept the target cash rate at 2.75% and following a warning that the AUD remains at a high levels (despite falling 10%), saw various AUD pairs slide. Which meant that all those correlation desks which had linked their rising ES signals to the AUDJPY and AUDUSD, would have to promptly recalibrate and find something else to "carry" them higher. That something was the Yen, as the USDJPY once again rose to just shy of the 100 resistance area, in the process pushing the Penikkeistock higher by 1.8% and above 14k, to 14,099 to be precise. Supposedly the Yen carry trade is back and all good again, or until such time as the 10 year hits 1% and the entire farce is repeated once more. However, at least Abenomics has bought itself a few weeks reprieve for the time being.

Back in April 2012 we first suggested - to loud jeers by the "pundits" who were convinced there is no chance in hell of it happening - that Goldman's take over of the world's central bank triumvirate: the NY Fed (Bill Dudley), the ECB (Mario Draghi) and the Bank of England, would soon be completed with Mark Carney taking over the world's oldest central bank located on Threadneedle street. Today, this process has concluded and we have photographic evidence. Behold Goldman's Mark Carney attending his first Monetary Policy briefing (observe Michael Cross, Head of Foreign Exchange, and Executive Director for Markets, of Fleecebook fame sitting on the lower left).

A busy week, with a bevy of significant data releases, starting with the already reported PMIs out of China and Europe (as well as unemployment and inflation numbers from the Old World), the US Manufacturing and Services PMI, another Bill Dudley speech on Tuesday, US factory orders, statements by the ECB and BOE, where Goldman's new head Mark Carney will preside over his first meeting, and much more in a holiday shortened US week.

Anyone expecting NY Fed's Dovish "edible iPad hedonic adjustments" expert Bill Dudley would join the hawks in being an uber dove, just hot spanked:

• DUDLEY REITERATES QE TAPER MAY BE APPROPRIATE LATER IN 2013
• DUDLEY REPEATS UNEMPLOYEMENT MAY BE ABOUT 7% AT QE BUYING END... and higher when Tapering begins?
• DUDLEY SAYS REDUCING QE BUYING WOULDN'T MEAN POLICY TIGHTENING
• DUDLEY SAYS FED WILL PROBABLY KEEP MOST ASSETS FOR A LONG TIME
• DUDLEY SAYS `MEASURED' QE TRIMMING MAY OCCUR IN 1ST HALF 2014

Welcome the latest rabbit hole in Bernanke's centrally-planned bizarro world, where hawks are doves, and doves are hawks.

With 45 minutes left to go, only one thing matters: what does Goldman think (the other issue of whether Jan Hatzius shared a meal with Bill Dudley at the Pound and Pence will remain unknown until the next batch of Dudley daily "minutes" are released in a few months). So for all those scrambling for an edge in a centrally-planned world, here it is, via Goldman's Francesco Garzarelli : "Turning to today’s FOMC announcement and press conference, our US Economics team expect Chairman Bernanke to stick to the same message on ‘tapering’ of bond purchases used in previous pronouncements on the matter, but also emphasize that reducing the expansion of the balance sheet does not imply that the Fed is anywhere close to hiking rates. We think this is broadly what bondholders are also expecting to hear."

While Fed officials are at pains to point out that their two policy tools (asset purchases and rates) the markets continue to link them and the latest increase in Taper chatter has dragged expectations for the first rate hike dramatically forward. Just a month ago, expectations were as late as Jan 2016 but Fed Funds futures have collapsed in recent weeks to imply rate hikes begin in Jan 2015 - a level of 'tightening' not seen since early Summer last year. Bernanke has stated that his communication is aimed at "reducing the risk that market misperceptions of [FOMC] intentions would lead to unnecessary interest rate volatility," but just as with Kuroda, the market seems to not be agreeing and, as we note below, there appears a good, bad, and ugly 'taper' scenario for today.

As important as when the Fed might taper its asset purchases is why it might do so. Uncertainty about the Fed’s QE reaction function, BofAML argues, is a significant contributor to recent market volatility. There are several scenarios that could explain why a number of Fed officials have started talking about tapering: they have become more optimistic on the outlook; they are more worried about potential QE costs; they have decided to taper earlier for largely technical reasons. The first of these likely would be the least disruptive for markets, and the last the most. Clear Fed communication could mitigate some of the volatility, but, as BofAML notes, the current lack of consensus on the FOMC likely means uncertainty will likely persist.