When President Donald Trump nominated Jerome Powell as chairman of the Federal Reserve during his first term, the president was seen as making the safest possible choice for one of the safest possible stretches of modern finance, a central bank boss with a history of rarely rocking the boat and tended not to dissent from what the rest of his peers wanted.

More chaotic times call for a more independent Fed chairman, and to replace Powell, whose second term as chairman ends in May, Trump has made the equally inspired and market-settling choice to nominate Kevin Warsh, the former maverick member of the Great Recession-era Federal Reserve Board of Governors, as Fed chairman.