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The Fed: Powell will get the last word on interest rates after Friday’s job report

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will get the last word about the economy and interest rates on Friday shortly before the Fed goes silent to prepare for its Sept. 17-18 meeting. Read More...
Bloomberg
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell faces a harder task to look independent after a former Fed official suggested the central bank look at politics in setting interest rates.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is going to get the last word before the central bank goes silent ahead of its Sept. 17-18 policy meeting.

Powell is scheduled to speak in Switzerland, at the University of Zurich, about the U.S. economic outlook and interest-rate policy on Friday. Powell will speak at 12:30 p.m. Eastern.

That’s only a few hours after the government releases the key August employment report. And it is a few more hours before the Fed goes silent to prepare for its policy meeting.

Read: U.S. likely added 173,000 jobs in August, but beware of an end-of-summer surprise

The bond market is convinced that the Fed is going to cut interest rates by a quarter-point after the Sept. 17-18 meeting and another time later this year, and maybe once more at the beginning of 2020.

In June, about half of the FOMC shifted their base case toward two quarter-point rate cuts this year.

Odds of a half-point cut at the September meeting moved lower Thursday on stronger-than-expected economic data.

Read: Service-oriented firms grow faster in August

The Fed voted 8-2 at the end of July to cut its benchmark federal-funds rate by a quarter-point to a range of 2%-2.25%. Powell called the rate cut a “midcourse correction.”

A large minority of Fed officials don’t think this is the time for the Fed to aggressively cut interest rates. They want the Fed to refrain from action in September and take a “wait-and-see stance.”

Another faction thinks that the Fed has to ease in the face of a weaker global picture.

Not easing would push up the dollar and be tantamount to a rate increase, said Michael Gapen, chief U.S. economist at Barclays.

In his speech in Jackson Hole, Wyo., last week, Powell was “skillfully noncommittal” about whether the Fed would cut rates in September, according to Jeremy Siegel, a professor of finance at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Read: Powell says Fed ‘carefully watching developments’ and ‘will act as appropriate’

Powell could use the speech to address former New York Fed President William Dudley’s essay this week that suggested the Fed might want to take steps to consider the economic risks of President Donald Trump’s re-election when setting interest rates.

The Fed quickly put out a statement distancing itself from Dudley’s comments, but the controversy has not subsided.

See: Dudley: I picked a fight with Trump because the Fed didn’t stand up for itself

Trump has castigated the Fed for not cutting interest rates and lowering the value of the dollar relative to U.S. trading partners. Shortly after Powell spoke in Jackson Hole, Trump startled investors by calling Powell an “enemy” on par with China’s President Xi Jinping.

Analysts will be watching the August job report closely for the latest reading on the strength of the labor market.

Economists surveyed by MarketWatch expect the U.S. economy will add 173,000 jobs in August, up from 164,000 in the prior month.

Read: Watch out for summer surprise in jobs report

A key reading of business activity has fallen into contraction in August.

Read: ISM manufacturing index falls below 50

But the service sector of the economy picked up in the month.

See: Service-oriented firms grow faster in August

Businesses have stopped spending but have not stopped hiring. If that changes, it would put pressure on households to cut back, increasing the risk of a recession.

Stocks have been volatile since the last Fed meeting in late July as worries about the health of the economy have increased. But the S&P 500 index SPX, +1.30%  is still up 430 points, or 17.19%, year-to-date.

The 10-year Treasury yield TMUBMUSD10Y, +1.04%  hit a 52-week low of 1.456% on Wednesday but jumped to 1.563 on Thursday.

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