Fed's Warsh sidesteps October rate hints in Bangkok, points to U.S. investment tailwinds

Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh refused to preview the central bank's late-October interest-rate decision during IMF meetings in Bangkok on Friday, sticking to his practice of not telegraphing votes while arguing that U.S. investment and global resilience still support the expansion.

No preview of the next move

Speaking Friday at the 2026 IMF-World Bank annual meetings in Bangkok, Warsh said he does not "prejudge" interest-rate decisions and would not say what he might do at the meetings left on this year's calendar. Reuters reported the comments from a conversation with IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva.

"I don't prejudge meetings. I don't believe in saying now what I might do at the meetings that we have in the balance of this year," Warsh said, according to Reuters. InvestingLive reported that he pointed to the Federal Reserve's October and December meetings as the moments when policymakers will take stock of output, employment and inflation.

Reuters said Warsh's decision to skip a near-term preview left intact the expectation that the Fed will not hike this month, even after two inflation measures ran hotter than expected this week, and the WMBD Reuters brief puts that meeting at Oct. 27-28, where markets expect a hold. Reuters said other Fed officials have argued that more tightening is probably needed but want more data first, a signal they were unlikely to deliver a second hike this month. Markets have been betting the Fed will wait until December, the wire service said.

What he did say about September

Warsh did revisit last month's decision. "We made very clear that we would deliver price stability, and we removed a dose of accommodation about a month ago," he said, referring to the Fed's September interest-rate hike. InvestingLive said the September move was a quarter-point increase, the first hike since 2023, and that it lifted the target range for the federal funds rate to 3.75% to 4%, with most officials then projecting at least one further increase this year.

He also said the world has "broadly conformed" to the Fed's expectations since that meeting, according to InvestingLive — a remark that leans toward the September path without locking in a December hike.

Tailwinds at home, resilience abroad

Warsh sounded more expansive on the real economy. He said a surge of investment in the United States — "which isn't just AI" — is broadening and giving "plenty of tailwinds" to growth, in comments carried by Reuters. InvestingLive said he called a structural investment surge, which he attributed to good policies, the most important upside development in the global economy.

On geopolitics, he said the global economy was "showing resilience that I'm not sure I would have predicted five or six months ago," Reuters reported. Inflation, he added, remains a "common challenge," and a synchronous tightening in monetary policy in most places around the world means "there's no free riders."

AI, spillover and what comes next

Warsh devoted part of the session to artificial intelligence. InvestingLive reported that he said AI is likely to boost demand before it delivers supply-side productivity gains, that its near-term effect on jobs is uncertain, and that the Fed will hold a field hearing on AI in the San Francisco Bay Area on Nov. 16.

He also framed policy as a two-way street. CGTN quoted him saying the Fed's policies spill over to the rest of the world, and that other countries' policies spill back to the United States too.

InvestingLive said the next markers are incoming U.S. data ahead of the Oct. 27-28 meeting and whether other Fed officials fill the gap left by the chair's silence.