Stock Market Today: Dow Futures Slip as Jackson Hole Speech From Fed’s Powell Looms

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Stocks were heading for losses Friday as a major catalyst loomed, with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s speech at the Jackson Hole economic conference likely to swing market sentiment one way or the other.

Futures for the

Dow Jones Industrial Average
retreated 70 points, or 0.2%, after the index advanced 322 points Thursday to close at 33,291.

S&P 500
futures fell 0.3% with the tech stock-heavy

Nasdaq
poised to decline 0.5%. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq gained 1.4% and 1.7% on Thursday, respectively.

Overseas, the pan-European

Stoxx 600
rose 0.3% and Tokyo’s

Nikkei 225
moved 0.6% into the green.

Investors will be closely monitoring Powell’s speech at 10 a.m. Eastern for indications of the central bank’s monetary policy pathway, including whether the Fed is likely to continue aggressively tightening financial conditions or begin easing up in 2023.

“Our U.S. economists don’t expect that Powell will deliver explicit guidance for the September meeting given that we’ve still got another jobs report and CPI print beforehand,” said Henry Allen, an analyst at Deutsche Bank. “However, they do think he’ll likely to skew his remarks in a hawkish direction to ensure the Fed’s inflation-fighting credentials are unquestioned.”

Write to Jack Denton at [email protected]