New Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh holds his first press conference today. The market expects no change in rates.

The real action is on Kalshi, where traders are betting which exact words Warsh uses at his debut.

What Kalshi Predicts Warsh Will Say

“Unchanged” tops the board at 81%, mirroring the market’s expectations.

“Oil” is also 81% and “Iran” 57%. The U.S.-Israel war on Iran shut the Strait of Hormuz and pushed inflation to 4.2%, the highest since 2023. The conflict hands Warsh a clean scapegoat for hot prices.

“AI” (69%) and “Productivity” (66%). Warsh argues AI-driven growth will curb inflation, which is how a known hawk justifies an eventual cut with prices still this high.

“Balance Sheet” (74%). He wants to shrink the balance sheet.

The Fed is sitting on about $6.7 trillion in bonds it bought over the years, and all that buying quietly inflated stocks, bonds and housing. Warsh’s complaint is that this mostly enriched people who already own those assets.

What Kalshi Predicts Warsh Will Skip

“Trump” sits at just 20%, against 64% for “President.”

Warsh won the most divisive Fed confirmation in the modern era and has vowed never to predetermine rates at the president’s request.

Traders expect him to nod at the administration without naming President Donald Trump directly.

“Tariff Inflation” is priced at 27% and “Stagflation” at 11%. Naming tariffs flags a Trump policy as inflationary; saying stagflation validates the diagnosis no new chair wants.

Blaming the war lets him sidestep both.

Despite being the rare Fed chair relaxed about crypto, Warsh draws only 9% odds of saying Bitcoin (CRYPTO: BTC).

He has said Bitcoin is no threat to the Fed’s ability to manage the economy, but a debut built on inflation credibility is no place to advertise it.

Reading The Board

Traders expect Warsh to hold rates, pin inflation on the war rather than tariffs, lean on AI to tee up a future cut, and dodge the scary words.

Warsh has spent years attacking the Fed’s dot plot, arguing those quarterly rate forecasts trap officials into defending calls the economy has already passed by. The real question Wednesday is whether his first act as chair is to simply stop submitting his own.

“Dissent” trades at 32%. Warsh inherits the committee that produced the most divided decision since 1992. A hawkish dissent says the committee is overruling him; a dovish one says the cutters are losing patience.

One ghost in the room is Jerome Powell, who keeps his governor seat with two years left and stays until the probe into the Fed’s headquarters renovation wraps, the same renovation Trump used to attack him.

He sat in the April majority, not the dissent, so watch whether he breaks ranks under the new chair. Traders give 41% odds Warsh says his name, 6% the renovation.

Warsh takes the podium at 2:30 p.m. ET.

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