Federal Reserve Annual Policy Symposium

Leaders will be attending the Federal Reserve Annual Policy Symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming this Friday and Saturday

A full list of speakers will be released Thursday evening at the Federal Reserve Annual Policy Symposium.

Chairman Powell is set to start Friday morning’s speeches. It is expected he will give investors more clarity on the likely path interest rates and his take on emerging market turmoil.

It is expected the theme of the event will be the current economic impact of giants like Amazon.com Inc.

The Federal Reserve is expected to hike rates in September, for the third time this year, with the fourth in December unclear yet.

Many are interested in an update from the Feds balance-sheet reduction. This runoff is reducing the level of reserves in the banking system.

It looks like this is affecting the Fed’s ability to manage things like the benchmark federal funds policy rate.

Michael Gapen, Chief U.S. Economist says,

“In that world, they are going to have to assess whether the fund’s rate is the right tool. Is there enough life in that instrument, and if not, what should be the policy rate?”

Stress in the emerging markets, particularly for Turkey, will be talked about amongst the attendees of the Federal Reserve Annual Policy Symposium.

The Fed’s won’t delay hiking rates in September unless global financial conditions get considerably worse. In general, the Fed’s are going to be doing the appropriate thing on the basis of domestic fundamentals.

The second quarter saw the U.S. economic growth jump to an annualized 4.1 percent ant to 2.8 percent year-over-year. Even as unemployment fell to 3.9 percent in July, inflation remained tame.

Unfortunately, the global economic picture doesn’t look as good.

With emerging-market worries, trade disputes and cooling growth in China, all pose a risk and warrant discussion at the Federal Reserve Annual Policy Symposium.

The European Central Bank plans to stop bond purchases by the end of 2018, and keep interest rates at a record low until at least the summer of 2019. It looks like no Executive Board members will be speaking at the symposium this year, but likely some officials will be there.

With other countries attending, rest assured there will be plenty of formal conference discussions, with several economist studies being examined.