This August, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell delivered his annual address to top central bankers and economists, sparking what Bloomberg described as an ‘all-conquering Wall Street rally’. The reaction was in stark contrast to that which met his last two speeches at Jackson Hole. In 2022, a contrite Powell accepted he had been wrong about the recent bout of inflation being ‘transitory’ and committed to continued interest rate rises; in 2023, having raised rates to almost 5.5%, he announced they would have to stay ‘higher for longer’. On both occasions, markets plummeted.
