Bond Market’s Rate-Cut Bets Hit Decisive Stretch With Powell

Bond traders’ big bet that the Federal Reserve is poised to lower interest rates faces a key moment this week as Chair Jerome Powell gets a chance to weigh in on the economy.

Powell’s speech on Friday at the central bank’s annual gathering in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, kicks off a make-or-break stretch for the Treasury market, which sees a quarter-point rate cut next month as virtually a lock, with at least one more by year-end. He’s used the occasion to make market-moving policy pronouncements in recent years, and this time the setting is potentially momentous.