Fed's Powell to take the stage amid a suddenly choppy landscape

investing.com:

(Reuters) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell will take the podium in New York on Thursday with his colleagues at the U.S. central bank in apparent agreement to hold interest rates unchanged at their next meeting in two weeks but with still-great uncertainty about what happens after that.

In remarks scheduled for 12 p.m. (1600 GMT) at the Economic Club of New York, Powell will all but close out a frenetic month following U.S. monetary policymakers' last meeting in mid-September, when they opted to leave their benchmark lending rate unchanged in a range of 5.25% to 5.50% to assess how the economy was evolving.

Since then, data has shown U.S. job growth reaccelerating unexpectedly, retail sales defying predictions of a slowdown and varying measures of prices offering up inconsistent signals as to whether inflation is on track to return to the Fed's 2% target in a timely manner.

If that were not enough, the bond market is reeling and tightening financial conditions at a rapid clip, and the most deadly Middle East conflict in years has erupted with no swift resolution in sight and worries it may widen into a regional war with unknown economic consequences.

Powell must parse it all while walking a fine line between sounding too confident or too doubtful, with a lean too far in either direction having the potential to swing financial markets — and overall financial conditions in their wake — in unwanted directions.

Powell's appearance comes less than 48 hours before the beginning of the traditional quiet period ahead of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee's meeting on Oct. 31-Nov. 1. While a handful of other Fed officials have appearances later on Thursday and Friday before blackout begins on Saturday, it is