Markets Dip Ahead of Fed Chair’s Speech: Live Updates
Jerome H. Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve, will deliver a speech at the Kansas City Fed’s research symposium Thursday morning — except this year, the storied annual meeting will take place online, rather than in Jackson Hole, Wyo., at the foot of the towering Teton mountain chain.
Mr. Powell spoke at the same conference’s opening in 2019, when the economy was growing steadily but facing uncertainty from President Trump’s trade war with China. Shortly after the speech, Mr. Trump tweeted about it, rhetorically comparing Mr. Powell to Xi Jinping, China’s leader: “Who is our bigger enemy, Jay Powell or Chairman Xi?” Mr. Trump wanted the Fed to lower interest rates more quickly.
This year’s speech promises to be dramatic again, but for different reasons. The Fed has slashed rates to near-zero and has rolled out a suite of emergency policies, many never before attempted, to try to help the economy make it through the pandemic.
At the same time, Mr. Powell and his colleagues have spent the past year and a half thinking through the future of monetary policy in a world of low interest rates and tepid inflation, a combination that has sapped the central bank’s tools of much of their former economy-stoking power. That framework review will be the topic of Mr. Powell’s remarks, which are scheduled for 9:10 a.m. Eastern time.
While the Jackson Hole research conference, which has been held since 1982, is usually an invite-only event attended by the world’s top economists, this year it will be webcast on the Kansas City Fed’s YouTube page, so the public can watch from home. Mr. Powell’s speech will be followed by a question-and-answer session.
While the Fed chair is the event’s headliner, he is not the only top central banker scheduled to appear at the conference. The slate of speakers includes Philip R. Lane from the European Central Bank, who will speak later on Thursday, and Andrew Bailey, head of the Bank of England, on Friday.
Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2020/08/27/business/stock-market-today-coronavirus