It really depends on how you play it. Playing second fiddle is not always a bad thing when you can have whoever is the "head honcho" shielding all the trouble for you while you comfortably grow your economy and your military. And then when the time is right, you wait when everybody is pissed with whoever is in charge and you comfortably unseat them or you can even stay in second fiddle forever enjoying all the benefits and making allies everywhere while whoever is the "head honcho" spend all the resources putting out fire everywhere.
Agree with that assessment. I might add that there are slight variations, some love to play the most powerful, while others happily pursue other goals in life. Depends on each particular society and what each values the most.
I think the biggest reason is not to have the announcement effect to negate or exacerbate the impact of his monetary policies. Markets adjust really fast nowadays to anything that he says so if he provides any forward guidance, the market will adjust very quickly and by the time when the policy is really implemented it won't have any effect on the economy anymore or the market's reaction could produce the same effect as his monetary policies so by the time when the monetary policies are really implemented, it would've overshot the objectives. So best not to announce what you are going to do beforehand so at least the policies will have some effect on the economy.
I heard in a Ted talk that some species of gorilla have an interesting dynamic. There is an alpha, yes. But there are "secondary" alphas who befriend the alpha and who survive the eventual deposing of the alphas. The secondary gets longer term benefits. So you're not wrong.
Here we go, total reversal in short yields. Yen sold off 1.3% as we speak. Made back about 1/3 of the post FOMC move...
Well yeah but profiting by holding a strong view contrary to the market and acting on that view makes success that much sweeter.