Poole was probably the most optimistic of all last week speakers. He does not see the US diving into a recession though foresees a lower 4th quarter growth with a rebound in early next year. He was clear on the need of Fed leading, not following markets on rate policy.
Thursday it was the turn of Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank President Thomas Hoenig. He sent three clear messages: a) they will not let the credit problems freeze the economy and the Fed will provide all the needed liquidity; b) inflation is still worrying and must be watched carefully and c) the Fed is on wait and see mode.
He is "confident" the US economy will grow "in the 2% neighbourhood" next year and considered positive factors "offsetting" housing weakness (and the corresponding negative wealth effects), such as boosting exports from a weak dollar. He also provided an interesting insight saying that: "inflation doesn't increase in big jumps" but "in little steps”. This is the reason why he was particularly mindful of inflation risks in the future.

On Friday it was Federal Reserve Governor Randall Kroszner who took the stage. He was very blunt announcing that economic indicators in the coming months will reflect a ``rough patch'' however this did not warrant additional interest-rate cuts. He was the last to speak over the week and was probably the one who tried more clearly to make sure that the market got the message from the Fed that rates are where they should be. He explicitly pointed out that current data ``would not suggest to me that the current stance of monetary policy is inappropriate.''

The end result of the Fed’s talking week is that despite so much talk the pricing of the market has barely changed. There is probably more chatting expected next weeks to try to change market’s pricing of rate cuts.