New Delhi, May 17 -- Are you better off than when Jerome Powell assumed the chair of the Federal Reserve Board on Feb. 5, 2018? From the narrow viewpoint of investors, the answer would be yes.

Over those eight-plus years, the central bank and the markets experienced a once-in-a-century pandemic, a near-total shutdown of major economies, and nearly an acute seizure of financial markets, followed by the biggest surge in inflation in over four decades. After all that, Kevin Warsh is taking over the Fed after the S&P 500 index and the Nasdaq Composite notched record highs, again, this past Thursday.

To be precise, $10,000 put into the popular State Street SPDR S&P 500 exchange-traded fund on Powell's first day as Fed head would have more th...