The U.S. Federal Reserve decided to shorten a policy meeting in late January 2006, which could signal that Chairman Alan Greenspan is leaving. “This change avoids a meeting that spans the terms of two chairmen,” the central bank said, confirming that Jan. 31 likely would be Greenspan’s last day.

Greenspan has served 18 years as the head of the U.S. central bank.

Last year, President George Bush appointed Greenspan to a fifth four-year term as Fed chairman. That term would not end until June 2008, but Greenspan has said he wanted to leave when his board term ended on Jan. 31, 2006.

Some market experts had speculated that Greenspan might be persuaded by President Bush to stay.

The three names mentioned most often as possible successors are Ben Bernanke, who took over as chairman of the president’s Council of Economic Advisers this year, Columbia University professor Glenn Hubbard, Bush’s first CEA chairman, and Harvard economics professor Martin Feldstein, who was CEA chairman during the Reagan administration.