Bernanke presided over the Great Financial Crisis of 2008. Greenspan had the 1987 crash, along with the 2000 DotCom bust. Volcker had the bond debacle of the early 1980’s and the subsequent Latin American debt crisis. For the past 35 years, every Fed Chairperson has been tested with some sort of financial event. Until now…

Janet Yellen was sworn into office as the Chair of the Federal Reserve on February 3rd, 2014 and since then, it has been fairly smooth sailing for financial markets. Sure there have been bumps along the way, but in the grand scheme of history, they have been fairly benign.

Yellen’s term ends in late January 2018, and although no one has confirmed it, let’s face it – she isn’t staying on. She will be 71 at that time, and although Greenspan stayed on as Chairman until he was 80, I just don’t see Yellen wanting to spend her golden years running monetary policy for this administration. Not only that, there is no way Trump will leave her in charge. The White House is already preparing markets for a change, floating Gary Cohn’s name as a potential successor.

So Janet has six more months of steering this global supertanker of an economy. Does she rock the boat and attempt to quell her critics that claim she has been too easy for too long? Or does she simply try not to make waves and see if she can keep the balls in the air until her handoff? Or does she cruise into the sunset at 197 miles per hour, letting the economy and markets run hot, not caring about the problems she might leave for her successor?

I had really believed the world’s Central Bankers had agreed to a hawkish shift in the wake of the recent overly easy financial conditions. There were many signals from various Central Bank officials throughout the globe. But yesterday at the Humphrey Hawkins’ testimony, Yellen seemed to completely abandon any notion that Federal Reserve officials were targeting financial conditions. Instead she delivered a boilerplate Central Bank head speech.