2nd top Fed official to retire in wake of trading activity

Robert Kaplan will step down as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas early next month, the Dallas Fed announced Monday. Kaplan, 64, became the second senior Fed official to announce that he is resigning after ethics questions were raised this month over their trading activity in the financial markets.

Kaplan’s resignation follows a similar announcement earlier Monday by Eric Rosengren, president of the Boston Fed. The two officials’ financial disclosures sparked criticism from government watchdogs after they revealed extensive stock trading in 2020, when the Fed was spending trillions of dollars stabilizing financial markets and boosting the economy. Because of their trading, the two officials could potentially have profited from the Fed’s actions.

Though the investments by Rosengren and Kaplan were permitted under the Fed’s rules, they raised at least the appearance of conflicts of interest, which Fed policy discourages. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a Massachusetts Democrat, sharply criticized the trades and urged Fed Chair Jerome Powell to bar stock ownership by Fed officials.