The Economic Week Ahead (August 22-26)

The big event of the coming week will occur on Friday at 10:00 am EDT, when Fed Chair Jerome Powell will address the annual global central banking conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Nothing much has changed since his press conference on July 27 other than that the S&P 500 is 7.8% higher. So he is likely to signal another rate hike in late September aimed at moderating inflation, which may have peaked but remains too high. Here's more of what's ahead this week:

(1) Business. Three regional business surveys for August are coming out for Chicago (Mon.), Richmond (Tue.), and Kansas City (Thur.). They are likely to confirm the NY and Philly surveys that showed weaker economic activity and easing inflationary pressures.