Rosengren is done as Boston Fed President this week
A statement from the Boston Fed said Eric Rosengren had been planning to retire in June when he hit the mandatory 65 year old retirement age. He revealed that he's in need of a kidney transplant and is aiming to improve his lifestyle now in order to hopefully delay the need for dialysis.
Boston Fed first vice president Ken Montgomery will take the role of interim president and CEO.
The statement doesn't make any mention of the trading scandal that's enveloped the Fed. In comments after the FOMC, Powell didn't exactly stand behind Rosengren and Kaplan. He said he wasn't happy when he heard the news that they had been actively trading securities.
I haven't seen as many details on Rosengren's trading but it was smaller and less frequent than Kaplan, who was trading S&P 500 futures. It's tough to see how he survives this. The Fed's code of conduct doesn't explicitly prohibit what he did but ethically, it's very tough to swallow.
As a Fed President, I was a fan of Rosengren. He flagged issues in commercial real estate and was never overly hawkish or dovish. I can never remember him roiling markets with an ill-advised comment.
