Highly anticipated speech to be scrutinized for rates outlook
Federal Reserve chief to speak at 10:05 a.m. eastern time
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will speak next Friday at the Kansas City Fed’s Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium, the US central bank said.
The Fed chief in recent years has delivered the opening keynote of the three-day conference, which will be held this year on Aug. 24-26 at the Jackson Lake Lodge in Grand Teton National Park.
Powell will speak on the economic outlook at 10:05 a.m. eastern time, the Fed said in a statement Thursday.
Investors will look to the highly anticipated speech for clues on the outlook for interest rates, which the Fed last month lifted to a range of 5.25% to 5.5%, the highest level in 22 years.
Minutes from the gathering showed policymakers still saw significant risks that inflation could remain higher than they expect, which could necessitate further rate hikes, though some officials would have preferred to hold rates steady and warned of the risks of keeping policy too tight as inflation falls.
Data since the meeting suggest price pressures continue to cool even as the labor market and consumer spending remain strong.
Powell told reporters last month the Fed would make rate decisions meeting by meeting, but emphasized that officials intend “to keep policy restrictive until we’re confident that inflation is coming down sustainably to our 2% target, and we’re prepared to further tighten if that is appropriate.”
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