Powell spoke at a volatile time, with stock markets and bond yields both declining in the wake of Trump's whipsaw announcements of steep tariffs.

The Federal Reserve has been focusing primarily on "quantitative" policy variables since the 2008-2009 period, when Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke moved the Federal Reserve into a new policy framework, one centered on "quantitative" variables.

With US stocks unstable, consumer confidence in the economy plunging and whispers of a potential recession growing less muted, the economy under President Donald Trump's second term has been about as stable as a recovering addict's first week back on blow.

The labor market picked up 151,000 jobs in February, a solid pace, despite a massive layoff among federal workers that began to show up in the data. The unemployment rate ticked up to 4.1 percent, extending low levels that have marked the past few years. Federal government payrolls lost 10,000 jobs in February.

The first-of-its-kind reserve will be anchored by a stash of Bitcoin the government already owns, estimated to be worth billions of dollars.

Federal Reserve chair Jay Powell played down concerns over US growth after U-turns by Donald Trump’s administration, disappointing jobs numbers and a tumultuous week in financial markets.

On March 7 2025, Donald Trump went against his previously held beliefs that cryptocurrency was “based on thin air” and confirmed the establishment of the Bitcoin Strategic Federal Reserve, an initiative that looks to promote the importance of decentralised digital currencies across the country and the world.

The Trump White House recently announced a project that the crypto industry loves, skeptics hate, and that most people, reasonably, don’t really care about: a “bitcoin strategic reserve.”

Employers added 151,000 jobs in February, the Labor Department said, based on surveys taken as Trump administration policies were still rolling out.