Trump has said he’ll announce his pick Thursday afternoon. In Powell, he’ll select a former private-equity executive who favors continuing gradual interest-rate increases and sympathizes with White House calls to ease financial regulations.

Powell declined to comment when approached by a reporter outside his Washington-area home. The Wall Street Journal earlier reported Trump had selected Powell.

Market reaction to that report was muted. The dollar briefly pared its gains, but still ended the day close to the level it was before the news and Treasuries maintained their advance. S&P 500 futures were little changed in Asian trading Thursday.

If confirmed by the Senate, the 64-year-old former Carlyle Group LP managing director and ex-Treasury undersecretary would succeed Fed Chair Janet Yellen, who has raised borrowing costs four times starting in late 2015 and just began scaling back the central bank’s $4.5 trillion balance sheet.

“He represents a bit of the continuation of the status quo without being named Yellen,” said Gennadiy Goldberg, interest-rate strategist at TD Securities. “He’s relatively dovish-leaning on policy, but also willing to undertake some deregulation at the margin. He’s basically a perfect candidate for Trump.”

The decision would cap a months-long White House search that included consideration of re-nominating Yellen, or installing outsiders such as National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, Stanford University economist John Taylor or former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh.

A Republican appointed to the Fed in 2012 by Democratic President Barack Obama, Powell has earned a reputation as a non-ideological and pragmatic policy maker. While he hasn’t played a prominent public role in formulating and explaining monetary policy, he has generally backed Yellen’s cautious approach to withdrawing stimulus. (bbn)

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