It is a good thing that Ben Bernanke already knows his way round the Federal Reserve’s stately headquarters, on Washington’s Constitution Avenue.

When he takes over from Alan Greenspan as chairman of the US central bank on February 1, Mr Bernanke – who served as a Fed governor before leaving for a short stint as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers last summer – will have two weeks to prepare before presenting the Fed’s monetary twice-yearly monetary report to Congress.