Wall Street responded sharply to Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s address at the Jackson Hole symposium on Friday. The speech, delivered amid mounting economic uncertainty and political pressure, provided new signals on the Fed’s interest rate outlook that immediately moved stocks, bonds, and global currencies.
Major U.S. stock indexes surged following Powell’s remarks, with the S&P 500 climbing over 1.5% and set to break a five-day losing streak—the longest since January. The Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq Composite each rose by nearly 2%, buoyed by renewed hopes of a rate cut at the Fed’s next meeting in September.
