Welcome to Seeking Alpha's Wall Street brunch, our Sunday look ahead to this week's

market-moving events, along with the weekend's top news and analysis.

Hello, today is Sunday, August 17th, and I'm your host, Kim Khan. It's Jackson Hole Week

and maybe the most critical speech in Jay Powell's tenure as Fed Chairman.

Powell's keynote is on Friday at 10 a.m. Eastern Time.

The Jackson Hole Symposium theme this year is labor markets in transition, demographics, productivity, and macroeconomic policy.

But all anyone want to hear is whether Powell is on board with starting to cut rates again, or if it's still wait and see time. The week August payroll's number and the downward revisions to previous

months ramped up market expectations for a quarter point rate cut in September, but the hottest

PPI in three years, some of which feeds into the core PCE that the Fed favors to measure inflation,

tempered some of the doveish enthusiasm. The 25 basis point cut next month

is still priced in, with odds above 90%, but a third quarter point cut this year is no longer

the baseline. But Andrea Chichione, head of strategy at TS-Lombard, says markets remain overly

confident on the pace of Fed easing. Following soft labor and CPI prints, a September 25 basis point cut was fully priced in, but a hotter PPI has tempered expectations.

We see September as a close call, particularly if payrolls rebound and expect the Fed to adopt a data-dependent stance thereafter.

Markets pricing in multiple cuts this year and a terminal rate near 3% appears optimistic and

no September cut could see easing stall near 3.5%, he said.

SA analyst Damir Tokich expects Powell's speech to lean hawkish, even with the risk of President

Donald Trump finding a way to oust the Fed chief.

At this point, it appears that tariffs are causing higher inflation

based on the PPI data. However, the importers are absorbing most of the price pressures for now

based on the CPI data. Powell is very likely to acknowledge that the risk of an eventual increase in

CPI is very high, he said. Looking to the impact on Wall Street, Clark Geenan, chief market

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