Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen will hold her swan song press conference on Wednesday, but don’t expect a victory lap.
“I don’t think she’s the kind of person to make it about her,” said Michael Hanson, chief U.S. macro strategist at TD Securities.
The Fed will begin its two-day meeting later Tuesday. Yellen’s will hold her final press conference at 2:30 p.m., after a decision on interest rate policy is released a half-hour earlier.
Investors appear confident that the Fed will raise short-term interest rates by a quarter percentage point, the third rate hike this year, pricing in the odds of a move at 87.6%.
Read: Here’s why the Fed will hike interest rates on Wednesday
Yellen has focused on building consensus and taken a fact-based data-driven approach to policy, so anything personal would be out of character, Hanson said, in an interview.
“Despite what you might have hear, this is not an overly ideological Fed,” he said.
Given the opportunity to discuss her four-year tenure, Yellen will likely give a polite short answer and defend what the Fed has done, he said.
Read: What bond and currency traders are looking for from Yellen’s Fed decision
Under Yellen’s tenure, the unemployment rate has fallen steadily, from 6.7% when she took office in Feb. 2014 to 4.1% today.
But inflation has remained stubbornly below the central bank’s 2% target.
At first, Yellen favored a “lower for longer” stance of policy, finding any reason to put off rate hikes. Then in late 2015, she transitioned to favoring gradual rate hikes and a slow shrinking of the balance sheet.
Markets have soared under her tenure but some worry about a bubble.
Scott Anderson, chief economist at Bank of the West Economics, said he had a nagging suspicion Yellen “might want to sneak in a short public parting message to help define her legacy as Fed chair.”
“I am thinking back to when Alan Greenspan was preparing to leave the Federal Reserve as chairman back in January 2006, and he talked publicly about periods of financial excess not always ending well historically. Within a year, the housing bubble was in full collapse,” Anderson said.
“Yellen might want to defend her legacy on bank regulatory reforms or even once again defend central bank independence as only someone on her way out the door in a few months can,” he added.
Vincent Reinhart, a former top Fed staffer and now chief economist at Standish Mellon Asset Management, said Yellen will “model good behavior” for future departing Fed chairs, he said.
Lou Crandall, chief economist at Wrightson ICAP, agreed.
“Chair Yellen is likely to keep things simple in her final quarterly press conference. The FOMC will stay on schedule for another rate hike and we don’t expect any fireworks in the messaging that accompanies this week’s policy move,” he said.
Fed Gov. Jerome Powell is expected to take over for Yellen on Feb. 1. He overwhelmingly received the support of a Senate Banking Committee panel, and now needs the support of the full Senate.