This past weekend the financial world was focused on a remote Wyoming resort town where the leaders of central banking gathered for an annual economic symposium. The meeting came as central bankers face the challenge of unwinding their assets after nearly a decade of stimulus following the financial crisis. Investors were listening for clues to future monetary policy moves, but what they got was much different, as Jade Barker reports.

 

As the fog lifted over the Teton Mountains in Jackson Hole Wyoming investors were also hoping for more light on monetary policy. But the world's top central bankers, mindful of being misinterpreted offered few clues. And Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen instead focused on a different issue. 

 

ERIC WIEGAND, SENIOR PORTFOLIO MANAGER PRIVATE WEALTH MANAGEMENT, US BANK I think the real takeaway was the much firmer tone taken in her presentation regarding the desire to retain or the advisability of retaining much of the regulatory issues that were put in place since the credit crisis.

 

This could be Yellen's final appearance at the Jackson Hole get-together as top dog at the US central bank, her term expires in February next year. But analysts say her speech amounted to a warning to the man who will decide if she will serve another term; President Donald Trump. He's put dismantling regulation at the centre of his agenda to stimulate faster US growth.

 

JONATHAN SPICER REUTERS CORRESPONDENT I think Janet Yellen has her finger in the wind a little bit here, she senses that her term is expiring early next year, she senses that of course there's a new administration in Washington and of course that republicans control the congress so the pendulum is swinging back now to potentially less stringent regulations on banks, on funds, on financial markets in general and she wants to make it very clear that all that work has been done since the financial crisis was worth it.

 

And Yellen wasn't the only one with this warning. European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said it was a dangerous time to loosen regulation given that central banks are still supporting their economies with accommodative monetary policies.

 

WILLIAM SPRIGGS, AFL CIO HOWARD UNIVERSITY I think there is a movement to try and ease back on the regulation we put in place to maintain safety of the system and I thought he spoke to that and Janet Yellen in her earlier speech also spoke to that so I didn't get a feel from them that they felt they needed to talk about monetary policy as much as there's a lot of push back against the kind of monetary policy that's been necessary to maintain safety 

 

While neither Yellen nor Draghi discussed specific policy strategy in their speeches, in a Q&A session the ECB chief did suggest it would remain loose in the euro zone even as financial stimulus eventually becomes a thing of the past. But that's as much as he revealed.  

 

JADE BARKER THOMSON REUTERS In a week that began with a total solar eclipse darkening the skies of this remote part of America's West investors had been hoping for fewer shadows from central bankers about their future plans to wind down stimulus, but the focus on regulation and trade moved monetary policy out of the spotlight. 

 

They'll likely have to wait until the ECB and Fed hold their own meetings in September to find out more.