LONDON—After taking the helm of the Federal Reserve in the 1980s, Alan Greenspan liked to say he had mastered the art of the strategic mumble. With financial markets prone to soar or dip based on what came out of his mouth, he learned to speak in an opaque and sometimes baffling fashion. The idea, in part, was to avoid giving traders, politicians or anyone else any hint what the central bank was thinking of doing. “If I seem unduly clear to you, you must have misunderstood what I said,” he once joked.

Source: Wall Street Journal February 09, 2020 22:30 UTC