Federal Reserve Gov. Frederic Mishkin said Wednesday that he would resign from the central bank at the end of August to return to his Columbia University teaching post.
His surprise announcement leaves an already short-staffed central bank even more depleted in the midst of the most challenging economy in decades.
With Mishkin's departure, the seven-member Fed board of governors could be pared down to four.The Democratic-controlled Senate for nearly a year has refused to vote on President Bush's nominees to fill several open Fed slots. If the Senate delay continues, whoever is elected president in November will have a chance to quickly shape the policymaking arm of the central bank through new appointments.
WHY THE FED GOVERNORS ARE IMPORTANT
Aside from Chairman Ben Bernanke, members of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors may not have high name recognition, but they have a big impact on U.S. consumers.
Fed governors and regional bank presidents vote on interest rate policy.
The Board oversees part of the banking industry, is in the process of writing broad credit card and mortgage lending rules, and has crafted policy for lending hundreds of billions of dollars to banks and other financial entities to ease a severe credit crunch.
Tracking the Dow on Wednesday 28/05/08
9:30am--A 40.0 point Gap Up.
Stronger than expected durable goods data for April leads the early euphoria.
10:30am--1st hour low detected.
(H12,600+L12,530)/2=(MAV12,565)
Buy-long position and sell close position around MAV.
11:30am--2nd hour,shooting star
Open a sell position.
12;30pm--end of morning session,another low.
(H12600+12,490)/2=(MAV12,545)Main index undeneath the MAV and shape like inverted hammer.Got into a buy position.
1:30pm--Penetrating MAV.
A bearish engulfing.Sell and add another short-position.
2:30pm--A dragonfly doji looking for lift off
Close buy and long another position.
3:30pm--Into a bulls country.
Hold on
4:00pm-closing bell,spinning top.
Inflation fears continue to build and there's mounting evidence of the impact that spiking energy prices are having on the broader economy.Oil prices rebounded from lows below $127 a barrel as the dollar dropped back from post-durable goods highs and reportedly on some covering of bets that oil prices would continue to fall.
The Dow will be creeping cautiously into last Friday's candle body.