Didn’t Get Invited to the Fed’s Mountain Retreat? Here’s What to Watch
unemployment rate at 3.5%, essentially unchanged over the past year—and so-called core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, is nearly double the Fed’s 2% target. “All in all, they’re probably in the 90th percentile of outcomes they might have hoped for in that the economy is strong and inflation is declining," said Kenneth Rogoff, a Harvard University economist who has participated in the symposium in previous years. Here’s what to watch: Why Jackson Hole Attracts the Spotlight Most of the conference hosted by the Kansas City Fed centers on the presentation of very technical academic papers—nirvana for the nerds in attendance but not the general public.
But many investors view the event as the Super Bowl of central banking, bringing together the international stars of the profession as they deal with the top policy issues of the time. The event has been a staging ground for high drama in the past. In 2008, officials grappled with a deepening financial crisis, and in 2014, then-European Central Bank President Mario Draghi laid the groundwork for a bond-buying campaign to stimulate the European economy.
Last year, Fed Chair Jerome Powell delivered an unusually brief opening address that landed like a bolt of lightning with markets because of how he promised to beat down inflation even at the cost of a recession. The speech jolted investors out of thinking the Fed saw a shorter and painless path to fighting inflation. This year, the conference comes as global central bankers are weighing whether or how much more they need to raise interest rates to vanquish inflation.
The Main Event: Powell The Fed chief is set to speak Friday at 10:05 a.m. ET on the economic outlook. Investors are likely to parse his
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