Is Jon Hilsenrath’s Fed coverage influence fading?

Matthew Boesler of Business Insider takes a look Thursday at how the markets reacted with a yawn to coverage from The Wall Street Journal‘s Jon Hilsenrath, who has been known in the past to influence markets with his Fed coverage.

Boesler writes, “Hilsenrath went on CNBC this afternoon and argues that, in fact, the overall message from the Fed yesterday was ‘hawkish’ (the opposite of dovish), placing emphasis on the minutes of the June FOMC meeting that were released hours before Bernanke spoke. Furthermore, he argued that Bernanke was only saying the same thing he’s already been saying for weeks – that tapering of bond purchases is going to happen, but interest rates will stay pinned at ultra-low levels for a long time.

“When Hilsenrath presented that argument, he got a lot of blowback – perhaps because those who view him as a mouthpiece for Fed policy couldn’t reconcile the argument he was making with the market reaction to Bernanke’s comments.

“‘I don’t know, Jon,’ said CNBC anchor Scott Wapner. ‘I look at markets across the board that are reacting as if the Fed chairman changed the game at 5:00 yesterday afternoon.’

“Markets hardly reacted to Hilsenrath’s comments in the CNBC interview today. Maybe that is a sign that the perception of him as some sort of mouthpiece is fading.

“That may represent a notable shift in perception from just a few weeks ago, when a Hilsenrath blog post published on WSJ.com ahead of the June FOMC meeting – titled ‘Analysis: Fed Likely to Push Back on Market Expectations of Rate Increase’ – caused stocks and bonds to rally.”