Kevin Warsh has taken the oath of office as Fed Chair and member of the Board of Governors, with the FOMC unanimously backing his chairmanship. Warsh, a former Fed governor under Bernanke, is widely regarded as a monetary hawk who dissented against quantitative easing in 2010 and has been critical of the Fed's balance sheet expansion — his ascension represents a meaningful shift in the Fed's ideological center of gravity.

The second-order setup is a potential repricing across rate-sensitive assets: longer-duration Treasuries, rate-sensitive equities (utilities, REITs, growth tech), and the USD could all move as the market reassesses the terminal rate and balance sheet path. The key watch items are Warsh's first public remarks as Chair, any signals on the pace of QT, and whether his hawkish reputation translates into action given current inflation and labor market data.