Surprise: There were no surprises to speak of from Jerome Powell’s congressional testimony on Wednesday.

You’re not going to get a lot in the way of honesty from… well, from anybody on anything, really, but to my point here, from financial media outlets regarding the “news-ification” of non-events.

I lament this at regular intervals even as I’m guilty of it myself. On March 3, I penned “Powell On The Hill,” a needlessly lengthy preview of this week’s “marquee” monetary policy event. Note the scare quotes around “marquee.”

Then, on Tuesday, I suggested Powell might paraphrase Raphael Bostic’s “pent-up exuberance” warning in the interest of curbing speculative froth across markets, where risk assets have benefited from, and contributed to, the financial conditions easing trend illustrated below.

Earlier this week, I pointed to a Fed gauge of financial conditions, noting that it’s just as easy now as it was before liftoff. The figure above shows Goldman’s gauge. The same’s generally true: The tightening impulse seen during the August-October long-end selloff is history.

And yet, in reality, the odds of push back from Powell were quite low, which is to say nonexistent. It was far more likely that Powell would deliver a predictable, deliberately boilerplate set of remarks and then try his best to avoid stumbling into an exchange with the potential to shift the policy narrative or move markets in a material way. That’s ultimately what happened on Wednesday. Expect the same on Thursday.

Sure, Fed officials find it useful from time to time (too often, in my opinion) to leverage public appearances for the purposes of steering markets, and particularly STIRs. But notwithstanding warm reads on CPI and PCE prices for January, Powell didn’t have a motive this week. Not to rock the boat, or at least not to tip it over. After all, market pricing for rate cuts in 2024 already converged on the December dots.

Markets and the Fed are generally on the same page. If the Committee wants to shake things up, they can always release a dot plot later this month that tips two cuts in 2024 instead of three. There was no chance (none) that Powell would endeavor to presuppose such a shift or otherwise prejudge any part of the forward guidance mix. The only rationale for adopting a deliberately hawkish bent would’ve been to introduce a little gravity into the equation for stratospheric equities, but on the off chance you’re new to this charade, the Fed’s not generally in the business of talking stocks down. Only up.

Consider also that NYCB’s back in a tailspin. If you took anything at all away from my Powell testimony preview (the one mentioned and linked above), it should’ve been this: Peak terminal rate pricing (nearly 6%) was reached this time last year, when Powell regaled lawmakers with a hawkish message following a spate of early-year macro data which suggested the US economy was still running hot. SVB collapsed 48 hours later. If NYCB’s doomed (and I’m not saying it is), Powell doesn’t want to be remembered for driving any nails into any coffins. If it’s gotta go, it’s gotta go, but Powell doesn’t have to be the guy to pull the fatal block out of the Jenga tower.

In addition, it’d be foolish for Powell to say anything definitive about the economy ahead of NFP on Friday. That’s a mistake he’s made before, and one he should avoid making again if and where possible.

So, what did Powell actually say on Wednesday? Well, nothing much. The Fed’s going to be careful and thoughtful about its approach to cutting rates, the number of cuts in 2024 will ultimately depend on the economy, officials still expect some help from lagged disinflation in housing services (somebody tell the BLS), growth’ll probably be decent in the US, there’s no obvious reason to expect a recession in the near-term and the Fed needs to see more data before reducing the amount of policy restriction, even as the Committee does want to stay ahead of the game where that means not waiting on 2% to start cutting.

There was more. Property insurance is adding to inflation. CRE’s a risk, particularly for regionals, but it’s manageable (somebody tell NYCB). AI may replace some jobs. And there’s a whole lot of disagreement around new capital requirements for banks, not exactly news, but always good for a contentious exchange or two (or three or six or seven).

And that’s really it. I don’t see a lot of utility in pretending there was something interesting on offer Wednesday when there wasn’t. Powell did manage an accidentally eloquent summation of the 2020s macro regime. “The pandemic is still writing the story of our economy right now,” he said. “And we should be prepared to be surprised with the next chapter.”

So, if you were bored by Wednesday’s surprise-free testimony, don’t worry: Something’ll shake things up sooner or later.