1 / 5Richard Harris, Chief Executive Officer, Port Shelter Investment Management: This is a Jackson Hole meeting, which is a meeting of central bankers, it is not necessarily a Fed meeting, which would have to take place if they were going to do it. However, it is a window on what central bankers are thinking not just the US central bankers, but also those around the world. Most important of all is we are looking at the US and what we are likely to see is some discussion from US members of the Federal Reserve Board about where they think they should go. Now, three of the non-voting members are basically calling for tapering, we have not heard from any of the others yet. It could be very interesting to see what they are likely to say, around the edges. One of the issues that the Fed has had in recent years, is that basically all of the governors are pretty independent, so they can say what they want. So it has been difficult for Jerome Powell to control the agenda and control the discussion and he is going to have the same problem here. The markets are tending towards the fact that the Fed is likely to announce some sort of tapering, maybe sooner than we think.
2 / 5Brian Jacobsen, Senior Investment Strategist Multi-Asset Solutions Team, Wells Fargo Asset Management: It is probably a very important speech, but not necessarily all that important for the markets. I am expecting chair Powell is going to try to make the speech almost as boring as he can for the financial markets because he does not want to create any sort of turbulence. Powell might focus on how monetary policy can combat factors such as inequality. The topic of the broader conference is really about monetary policy and uneven economic recovery. Therefore, given the broader theme of the conference, we do not know exactly what he's going to talk about, but I suspect it's going to be something along the lines of inequality, and perhaps how it is that monetary policy can play a role in combating some of the problems of inequality.
3 / 5Brian Jacobsen, Senior Investment Strategist Multi-Asset Solutions Team, Wells Fargo Asset Management | Part 2: People are going to try to read into his statements about when the Fed might announce a tapering. So even if he does not come right out and say it, I think that maybe some of it will be implied because we know that the Federal Reserve, in terms of their mandate for stable prices, and full employment, they have really said that the full employment part of their mandate is supposed to be more inclusive -- that is, it is not just looking at the headline, unemployment rate, but it's looking at maybe the unemployment rate or underemployment for minorities and different various demographic groups.
4 / 5Gary Schlossberg, global strategist at Wells Fargo Investment Institute: We are building in a little too much. I think the expectation should be that Chair Powell will talk about progress in achieving goals, the labour market, the economy, a little bit of concern about inflation, but really leaving his options open until that September Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting. I would be surprised if there is anything definitive.
5 / 5Vinod Nair, Head of Research at Geojit Financial Services: Though investors are anxiously awaiting the outcome of the Fed meeting, it is unlikely that the Fed would opt for a preponement of its taper plans from its previous announcement as they would want more consensus regarding economic data and how the delta variant would impact the economy.
