U.S. Federal Reserve adopts strict trading rules after ethics scandal
The U.S Federal Reserve has adopted a new set of investing and trading restrictions for its senior officials: They will be banned from purchasing sector funds, engaging in short sales, or buying securities on margin, as well as from holding cryptocurrencies, commodities or foreign currencies. The restrictions come on top of rules first outlined in October 2021 keeping Fed officials from purchasing individual stocks or entering into derivatives, or from holding individual bonds and agency-backed securities.
The sweeping new restrictions come out of review following an ethics scandal that shook confidence in the U.S. central bank’s integrity in autumn 2021, as a Reuters article explains. Therefore, they are meant “to support public confidence in the impartiality and integrity of the Committee’s work,” as the Fed communicated in a press release. The Fed’s Federal Open Markets Committee is its policy-setting body.