U.S. futures are mixed Friday ahead of an address from Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, during the Fed’s annual economic symposium.
Despite pressure to provide guidance on U.S. policy, Warsh has made clear he intends to provide fewer clues about how the Fed intends to control inflation.
Many economists and investors want a clear signal on how Warsh thinks the Fed should handle stubbornly elevated prices that have caused pervasive gloom among many Americans. At his last press conference, he avoided providing direct answers about whether the Fed would hike its benchmark interest rate if inflation remained above the Fed’s target.
The futures for the S&P 500 declined slightly on Friday, while that for the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.1 per cent. Nasdaq futures fell 0.3 per cent.
One wild card for inflation has been oil prices, which have been volatile due to uncertainty about the war in Iran. It is still not known when the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s crude passes on a typical day, will re-open to tanker traffic
The price for a barrel of Brent crude, the international standard, rose 0.2 per cent Friday to US$88.68. U.S. benchmark crude oil fell 0.1 per cent to US$83.46 per barrel.
Brent’s price zigzagged between US$72 and US$102 last month as hopes rose and fell that the United States and Iran could reach an agreement to end hostilities and the threat to oil tankers in the strait.
In the bond market, Treasury yields ticked higher as markets grow increasingly uneasy about the long-term economic trajectory of the U.S.
In early trading, Gap’s stock surged more than 17 per cent before the market opened after it posted strong quarterly earnings late last night and it said that Michael Francis will become CEO of its struggling Old Navy brand later this year. Shares of PayPal slid more than 17 per cent on a report from Bloomberg that Advent and Stripe are dropping plans for a potential buyout of the online payments company.
In Europe, Germany’s DAX rose 0.6 per cent to 26,522.87, while the CAC 40 in Paris climbed 1 per cent to 8,401.67. Britain’s FTSE 100 climbed 0.2 per cent to 10,81473. Asian markets were mixed.
In other dealings Friday, the U.S. dollar rose to 159.63 Japanese yen from 159.39 yen. The euro dropped to US$1.1649 from US$1.1652.
Elaine Kurtenbach, The Associated Press
