A five-month process of finding the next Federal Reserve chair appears to be down to its final days, with one candidate emerging as the betting favorite even as others remain in the mix.
BlackRock fixed income chief Rick Rieder is seen by prediction markets as the frontrunner to replace Jerome Powell at the helm of the central bank. Kalshi has the Wall Street veteran holding a 48% chance, well ahead of the next-closest competitor, former Governor Kevin Warsh, at 31%.
But sentiment has been volatile, and it was Warsh who held a decided advantage less than a week ago.
What has swung the pendulum seems tenuous: In a CNBC interview at the World Economic Forum, Trump called Rieder “very impressive,” and a Bloomberg News report, citing unnamed sources, said White House officials generally liked Rieder.
While that was enough to sway wagers on sites like Kalshi and Polymarket, some on Wall Street are less convinced and still see it as a competitive race yet to be decided by a notoriously fickle president. With Warsh still well in the mix, some analysts also think the market’s move away from National Economic Council (NEC) director Kevin Hassett is at least too hasty.
