In partnership with
GM. This is Milk Road Macro, the newsletter that’s here to help you navigate the hawks and the doves without getting your portfolio covered in bird doody.
Before we start, some bittersweet news: this is the final edition of the Milk Road Macro newsletter, and today will also be the final Milk Road Macro podcast.
I'm incredibly proud of what we've built and the conversations we've had together over the past year. While these channels are coming to an end, macro will remain a core part of how we think about markets at Milk Road. Going forward, the MRMI (Milk Road Macro Index) will be our primary macro framework, and we'll continue weaving macro insights into our AI and crypto coverage.
Thank you for reading, listening, and being part of the journey.
Okay, enough sentimentality. Let's get into the actual news, because Kevin Warsh just ran his first FOMC meeting as Chairman of the Federal Reserve.. We’re going to translate the high-stakes drama into plain English, and lay out exactly how Warsh’s proposed changes to the central bank impact investor wallets. We might also make a few more jokes about bird poop.
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FORWARD SILENCE
Chairman Warsh presided over his first FOMC meeting on June 16–17, 2026.
The committee voted unanimously (12-0) to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 3.50 to 3.75%.
A rate hold was heavily expected by derivatives markets, but the consensus itself was a significant administrative achievement for Chairman Warsh. Just six weeks ago, the April 29th meeting concluded with an 8-4 vote, reflecting the highest level of voter dissent the central bank had experienced in over thirty years.
So, that’s a win for Kevin right there. He seems to be bringing the board together.
Next, under Warsh's direction, the FOMC released a drastically shortened, half-page statement that completely rewrote the Fed's communication playbook.
The primary casualty of this linguistic overhaul was the "easing bias." By dropping this phrase, the committee officially shifted to a neutral stance.
This is the Fed’s way of saying to global markets that the monetary training wheels have been removed and the path of future rates is entirely uncommitted.
Furthermore, the statement stripped out "forward guidance," the long-standing practice of telegraphing future interest rate trajectories months in advance.
Instead, Warsh expressed admiration for the legendary "strategic ambiguity" of former Chair Alan Greenspan. It seems like Warsh’s plan is to give himself and the Fed more flexibility to react to the raw economic data, as opposed to locking themselves into a pre-calculated policy path.
Another big change was in the Summary of Economic Projections and the famous dot plot.
Warsh has never liked these, so now that he’s the boss, he just declined to submit one.
That’s right. Apparently when you’re the boss you can just decide not to do stuff. Take notes.
Warsh became the first modern Chair to refuse to submit his own interest rate projection, resulting in a dot plot containing only 18 physical dots for the 19 participating policymakers. Despite his non-participation, the projections submitted by his colleagues delivered a hawkish shock to financial markets.
Nine Fed officials, half of the submitting committee, foresee at least one hike in 2026.
No bueno. But it’s clear that Warsh is going to fight that battle in a different way.
FIVE FED TASK FORCES
Warsh announced the rollout of five independent policy task forces.
Which sounds really cool but it’s really him just getting together a bunch of really smart nerds to talk about economics and money stuff.
It’s super important though so we’re going to break these down so you know what’s up.
This whole plan is designed to conduct a "first principles" review of how the Federal Reserve operates, communicates, and measures economic health. Warsh stated that the task forces would begin work within weeks, enlisting "some of the very best minds, both inside and outside the economics profession," with the objective of delivering concrete, actionable recommendations to the board by the end of the year.
To put it simply, Warsh is completely re-evaluating everything the Fed does and how they do it.
He’s going to re-create the institution from the ground up, but without a hard hat photo op.
Remember that? I know Jerome Powell remembers it.
Anyway, I made another table of stuff to help you keep track of Warsh’s new task forces:
Source: Milk Road Macro
These task forces reflect Warsh’s desire for a "regime change" at the central bank. Because if you can’t get one in Iran, you can settle for the Fed.
For example, the Balance Sheet task force will address one of Warsh’s long-standing grievances: the massive footprint of the Fed's asset holdings. Warsh has argued for decades that holding massive quantities of government debt and MBS is bad for markets and not the proper role of the Fed.
The Productivity and Jobs task force is also poised to examine the structural impact of Artificial Intelligence. The task force will evaluate whether the massive capital expenditure is generating genuine, disinflationary productivity gains that allow the economy to grow faster without triggering consumer price pressures.
Which would be like super chill if it did that. All my homies love disinflationary productivity gains without consumer price pressures.
Alright let’s land this plane.
Wrapping up
It looks like Chairman Warsh means business.
He’s taking control, bringing the committee together, and completely rethinking the institution he’s been put in charge of.
There are likely going to be a lot of changes coming out of Warsh’s Fed, so you’re going to want to pay close attention.
It remains to be seen how well all of this actually goes in practice, but I gotta be honest with you, I really like what I’m hearing and seeing so far.
Overall, I think these changes and re-evaluations make a lot of sense and could lead to some very positive outcomes.
I also think that while the hawks on the board of governors seem to be tilting towards a rate hike, Warsh is going to marshal a very powerful counterargument in favor of the doves.
And a sitting Chairman of the Fed is a powerful figure to have to argue against. So far, Warsh seems to have been persuasive to his colleagues.
We’ll see if that holds out.
Bottom line, we made it through this meeting without a rate hike. Warsh is improving the Fed fast. And the bulls have been given the all clear to keep the party going.
So, as always,
Stay safe. Stay educated. And stay bullish!
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