Boston Federal Reserve president Eric Rosengren has announced he is retiring nine months ahead of schedule, citing deteriorating health from a longstanding kidney condition, with the announcement following recent controversy over trades he made during the pandemic. Rosengren’s announcement, which came in a Sept. 27 letter (pdf) to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell, follows an uproar over trades he made in 2020, which were permitted by the Fed’s ethics rules but sparked criticism over potential conflict of interest. The Boston Fed chief said in the letter he was resigning ahead of his scheduled retirement in June 2022 “to address some serious health issues that worsened in the last 18 months and must be addressed.” “It has become clear that I should aim to reduce my stress so that I can focus on my health issues, and postpone for as long as possible my need for kidney dialysis,” Rosengren wrote in the …