Fed Ethics Office Warned Officials to Curb Unnecessary Trading During Rescue

“It’s hard for me to fault him that he did it when he did it,” Mr. Conti-Brown said, later adding that “it would be more a scandal for this trade to end Chair Powell’s career as a central banker.”

The board’s March 23 guidance appears to have had some effect, because central bank officials overall conducted little or no active trading during the period last year when they were most active in markets, in March and April.

Mr. Powell’s only dated transactions came in September, October and December. Mr. Clarida’s came in February and August. Ms. Brainard did not report any transactions last year.

Randal K. Quarles, the Fed’s vice chair for supervision at the time, is shown to have bought a financial stake in a fund in early April; a family trust that his wife has an interest in bought an interest in a fund, which the couple sold before the fund purchased any securities, a Fed spokesperson said. Michelle Bowman, a Fed governor, noted a small sale in mid-April. That came from a retirement fund held in her spouse’s health savings account, and reflected the account’s closing as her husband changed jobs, a Fed spokesman said.

At the regional banks, the heads in San Francisco, Minneapolis, Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City, Mo., noted no disclosures or only college savings plan and retirement contributions last year. John C. Williams, the president of the powerful New York Fed, reported one personal transaction in December.

The Fed president in Richmond, Va., reported private equity and bond transactions in July and August, and the Atlanta Fed president helped buy a property in Utah in June. The Cleveland Fed president reported buying index fund shares in February, but then stopped until November.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/21/business/economy/federal-reserve-ethics-trading.html