Powell’s ‘Totality of Data’ Keeps Bond Market in Limbo

The US bond market’s day of reckoning has been postponed for at least a week.

While Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell’s speech at the central bank’s annual meeting in Jackson Hole Friday was unequivocally hawkish, the market remains near-evenly divided about the outcome of next month’s policy meeting. Still-elevated inflation makes a rate increase inevitable, but the size “will depend on the totality of the incoming data and the evolving outlook,” Powell said.