Powell Needs a Stock Selloff to Act on Bond Yields
The market may test the Fed chairman before the next policy meeting in two weeks.
The Fed chairman didn’t say what the market wanted.
Photographer: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
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It appears that investors wanted Jerome Powell to say something else. “Stock Market Momentum Comeuppance Gets No Sympathy From the Fed” read the Bloomberg News headline after the Federal Reserve chairman spoke to a Wall Street Journal webinar. He echoed the Fedspeak we have heard over the last few days, saying the recent rise in bond yields was “something that was notable and caught my attention.” But beyond repeating what is obviously an agreed form of words, he made no hints as to what the Fed might do about it.