3.0.0 (June 18): RETIRED. The named catalyst resolved - Warsh ran his first FOMC and held with an explicitly hawkish dot plot and a price-stability-first message, ending the transition uncertainty this thesis tracked; the higher-for-longer rate-path channel continues in Hawkish Warsh regime and higher-for-longer. The thesis did not fail falsifiably (status wv.retired, not invalidated); confidence is frozen at its final 0.53. Prior window (2.2.4) stepped 0.51 to 0.53 on the first event that bears on the transition question ITSELF rather than on the backdrop: Trump's on-the-record "a rate increase would be wrong" is direct presidential pressure on the new chair days before his debut FOMC - the Fed-independence-stress premise of the thesis materializing, not just data the chair will react to. The +0.02 is modest because the pressure is an input to the risk, not yet a Warsh RESPONSE - the dovish-tilt question stays unresolved until he acts. Width held at 0.09; the ~0.5 mean with the widest band in the worldview remains the honest statement that this is a genuine coin-flip until the June 16-17 FOMC, now five days out, with a 4.2% CPI and a fully-priced December hike on one side and the President on the other. Beta(15.8, 14.0) ~30 effective observations. The horizon is the shortest in the worldview: two or three meetings resolve the dovish-tilt question one way or the other.

Powell completed his Fed chair-term exit Friday May 15 2026 with conciliatory final remarks: advised Warsh to "stay out of elected politics" and pledged to keep a low profile as a governor through his Board term to 2028. Senate had confirmed Warsh as Federal Reserve Chair 54-45 on Wednesday May 13 - the narrowest modern-era margin since the current approval process was put in place in 1977; Fetterman (D-PA) was the only Democratic crossover. Warsh's formal swearing-in ceremony is scheduled for Friday May 22 2026 at the White House - confirmed by the May 15 Fed Reserve announcement of Powell as chair pro tempore until Warsh is sworn in. The 13-11 party-line Banking Committee advance, the prior 51-45 governor confirmation, and the 54-45 chair confirmation all stand as historically partisan Fed-Chair-track outcomes. Warsh confirmation-hearing framing - "won''t be sock puppet" and "room to cut without inflation" - introduces a dovish-tilt risk. Friday May 15 delivered the sharpest rate-path repricing of the cycle: 10Y to 4.59%, CME FedWatch hike-by-December to ~56% from ~36% Thursday. Monday May 18 intraday extended to 4.61-4.63% before pulling back to a 4.601% close on the strike-cancellation flow; Tuesday May 19 closed 10Y at 4.62% (intraday high 4.67%), the rate-path repricing reasserting. Global yields (German bund 15-year high, JGB 10Y 29-year high) remain elevated. The contradiction between Warsh's "room to cut" framing and the inherited backdrop (CPI 3.8%, PPI +6.0% YoY, imports +4.2% YoY, 10Y 4.62%) remains in place, but the substantive transition question still opens later: first Warsh-as-chair public statements come after the Friday May 22 White House ceremony, and the first Warsh-as-chair FOMC is June 16-17. Update May 20: the hawkish April 29 minutes (officials debating hikes; hike-by-December ~63%) sharpen the contradiction with Warsh's "room to cut" framing, but the substantive transition still opens only after the Friday May 22 swearing-in. Update May 22: Warsh took the oath as Fed chair Friday in a White House ceremony with President Trump participating - the first White House Fed-chair swearing-in since Greenspan in 1987, a venue choice that underscores the Fed-independence-stress lens. The named catalyst has now resolved, but no Warsh-as-chair policy substance has landed - first public remarks and the June 16-17 FOMC remain the operative tells. Update May 25: no Warsh-as-chair policy substance landed over the holiday weekend - weekend commentary that markets tend to "test" new Fed chairs is color, not a tell - leaving the contradiction between Warsh's "room to cut" framing and the inherited higher-for-longer backdrop unresolved ahead of his first public remarks and the June 16-17 FOMC. Update May 26: Warsh's first remarks as chair surfaced - he pledged a "reform-oriented Federal Reserve ... escaping static frameworks and models," cited Greenspan as a model, and stressed the dual mandate pursued with "independence and resolve" - reform-flavored but anodyne on near-term policy, resolving the what-will-he-say uncertainty (band tightens to 0.09) without resolving the room-to-cut-versus-higher-for-longer contradiction; the June 16-17 FOMC is the first substantive policy test. Update May 27: no new Warsh-as-chair policy substance landed - the FOMC has formally elected him chair, and markets now price ~80% odds of a June/July hold with hike-by-December odds at ~70% - leaving the room-to-cut-versus-higher-for-longer contradiction (the 10Y at ~4.48% notwithstanding) for the June 16-17 FOMC to resolve. Update May 28: no new Warsh-as-chair policy substance landed on the Wednesday cash close or the Thursday pre-market read; the 10Y held near the ~4.48% mark, the ~70% Dec-hike pricing intact, and April PCE consensus 3.8% headline / 3.3% core is the imminent inflation read - the Warsh / room-to-cut contradiction is unchanged ahead of the June 16-17 FOMC. Update May 29: the April PCE landed core 3.3% / headline 3.8% YoY, in line with a softer monthly pace - hardening the room-to-cut-versus-higher-for-longer contradiction the new chair inherits even as the 10Y eased to 4.46% - but no Warsh-as-chair policy substance landed; the June 16-17 FOMC is the first substantive policy test. Update June 1: another quiet window for the transition - no Warsh-as-chair policy substance landed over the weekend - while markets firmed June-hold pricing to ~99.4%, effectively removing any expectation of a first-meeting surprise; the room-to-cut-versus-higher-for-longer contradiction is preserved fully intact for the June 16-17 FOMC itself. Update June 2: another quiet window for the transition - no Warsh-as-chair policy substance landed. June-hold pricing stands at ~98.4% (a 0.6% hike probability), with forward hike odds still building - by April 2027 markets price ~40% odds of +25bp and ~22% of +50bp. The macro prints that landed - 7.6M April JOLTS openings and ISM prices paid at 82.1 - harden the higher-for-longer side of the contradiction the new chair inherits, without being Warsh signals themselves. Update June 3: another quiet window for the transition - no Warsh-as-chair policy substance landed. The 10Y eased to ~4.43% Tuesday, its lowest in roughly three weeks, on the Iran-deal proximity and the oil-passthrough relief it implies - widening, at the margin, the gap between market pricing and the higher-for-longer data the chair inherits. The June 16-17 FOMC remains the first substantive policy test, now under two weeks out. Update June 4: another quiet transition window - no Warsh-as-chair policy substance landed. ISM Services May prices paid at 71.3% hardens the higher-for-longer side of the contradiction the chair inherits without being a Warsh signal, and the May jobs report Friday is the next data point; the June 16-17 FOMC remains the first substantive test. Update June 5: the hot May jobs print (+172k) and ~70% hike-by-December pricing sharpen the room-to-cut-versus-higher-for-longer contradiction the new chair inherits, still with no Warsh-as-chair policy substance. Update June 11: the political-pressure channel went from latent to explicit - President Trump said Sunday that a Fed rate increase "would be wrong", direct presidential pressure on the new chair days before his first meeting - landing on top of a 4.2% headline CPI and a market that holds ~98% June-hold pricing while fully pricing a 25bp hike by December. The contradiction the thesis names is now being litigated in public by the President against the market's own pricing, with the June 16-17 FOMC - Warsh's first as chair, with a full SEP and dot plot - five days out. Still no Warsh-as-chair policy substance; the dots and the presser are the first substantive test. Update June 18 (3.0.0): the test resolved - Warsh held at his first FOMC with an explicitly hawkish dot plot that put a 2026 hike on the table and a price-stability-first message. The transition uncertainty this thesis tracked is RESOLVED, so it is RETIRED (status wv.retired - it did not fail falsifiably); the higher-for-longer rate-path channel continues in Hawkish Warsh regime and higher-for-longer.