John Williams, president and chief executive officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, speaks during an Economic Club of New York (ECNY) event in New York, US, on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025.David Dee Delgado | Bloomberg | Getty ImagesCommunication at the Federal Reserve, particularly at the highest levels, rarely happens by accident.Messages that come out of the top echelon, particularly the chair, vice chair and the powerful New York Fed president, are measured carefully, calibrated between delivering clear ideas about policy without causing undue reaction in financial markets.That’s why a speech Friday from the current New York Fed leader, John Williams, mattered so much to markets. With his position comes membership in the Fed’s leadership troika, a group that also includes Chair Jerome Powell and Vice Chair Philip Jefferson.So when Williams gave a nod to the likelihood of a “further adjustment in the near term” for interest rates, investors took it as a message from on high that the leadership is inclined for at least another rate cut sometime soon, likely at the December meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.”There is some ambiguity in the phrase ‘near term’ – but its most obvious reading is at the nextmeeting,” Krishna Guha, head of global policy and central bank strategy at Evercore ISI, said in a client note. “And while it is possible that Williams was offering a personal view, signals from the other membersof the Fed leadership troika (vice-chairman, NY Fed president) on key live policy issues are almost always approved by the chair and it would be professional malpractice for him to deliver this signal without Powell’s sign-off,” he added.Williams’ comments on rates come at an especially sensitive time for the Fed and financial markets.The policymaking FOMC, normally a consensus-driven group sometimes maligned for lacking diversity of thoug …
