Chairman Powell Set to Kick Off Jackson Hole Symposium; Stocks Lower for the Week; Rate Cut Expected for September

From a macro perspective, it's been a funky week as geo-politics criss-crossed with economic realities. Starting with hopes for peace in Ukraine, a botched White House meeting dashed those hopes by mid-week, as the U.S. and its European partners can't seem to understand that Russia is winning the war and thus will dictate terms of any peace agreement, not them. Last Friday's Alaska summit between Trump and Putin now appears to be a total waste of time and effort, other than Trump showing off some jets (Putin was not only not impressed, he laughed at the grandstanding).

Meanwhile, expert analysts have been poring over details of big tech AI spending, concluding, at least partially, that the half-trillion in announced expansions of data centers by the likes of Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple and others is probably a bitt too much for LLMs (Large Language Models) when the world is increasingly looking towards SLMs (Small Language Models) that could function inside robots, refrigerators, cars, drones, and apparel.

On Thursday, word that Walmart (WMT) missed their earnings expectations sent some people scrambling for the sell button, sending all indices lower, including the Dow, which had spent the prior six sessions flat-lining just below 45,000.

Naturally, those mysterious dip-buyers (NY Fed, ESF, PPT, etc.) came in just after 10:00 am ET and again in the afternoon to save the market's bacon, lifting all the majors off their lows.

Early this morning, in anticipation of Fed Chairman Jerome Powell's speech to kick off the annual Jackson Hole Economic Policy Symposium hosted by the Kansas City Fed, stock futures plunged and then magically recovered into positive territory. The Chairman is set to take the stage at 10:00 AM ET. The theme of the 2025 conference is titled "Labor Markets in Transition: Demographics, Productivity, and Macroeconomic Policy."

With high expectations that Powell will offer tacit indication of a September rate cut, the move in futures is intended to give market participants some positive reinforcement, even though cutting rates with stocks near all-time highs, grocery prices rising again and killing what remains of America's middle class, and tariffs adding to inflation pressures, is probably the last thing the Fed should be considering. It's almost as if the accumulated braintrust of the government and its think tanks and policy honchos have collectively lost their minds.

With the opening bell ringing in less than half an hour, stock futures are stoked. For the week, though Thursday's close, the Dow is down 160 points; NASDAQ is off 522, and the S&P is lower by 79.

Powell's speech will be available from a variety of sources on the web and might be one of the more revealing expositions of the year, setting the policy stage for the 4th quarter and into 2026.

At the Close, Thursday, August 21, 2025:
Dow: 44,785.50, -152.81 (-0.34%)
NASDAQ: 21,100.31, -72.54 (-0.34%)
S&P 500: 6,370.17, -25.61 (-0.40%)
NYSE Composite: 20,818.60, -46.95 (-0.23%)