US pre-open: Futures drift slightly lower ahead of Powell speech

Wall Street equity futures are pointing to a slightly lower start to trading ahead of Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell's speech at Jackson Hole.

There were those who believed that volatility in foreign exchange markets, in particular, might pick up noticeably following Powell's remarks, which were also being billed by some strategists as potentially key for stocks.

The central banker was scheduled to begin his speech from 1500 BST.

Nevertheless, as Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at Oanda, noted: "The difficulty for Powell stems from the fact that there's the message investors desperately want to hear and the one they've repeatedly ignored since the July Fed meeting."

In remarks made overnight, the heads of the Federal Reserve Banks of Philadelphia, Kansas City and Atlanta appeared to indicate that, for their part, they preferred to keep all possible options on the table, both looking out to the September 20-21 Fed policy meeting as well as for early 2023.

For their part, the Philly Fed's Harker and the Atlanta Fed's Bostic (together with St.Louis Fed chief Bullard in days prior) had argued for a pause at the start of 2023, although the former wanted the target range for the Fed funds rate to end the year at 3.4% and the latter two 25 basis points higher, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

Bullard was the exception vis-a-via the September FOMC meeting, having said on 18 August that he was leaning towards a 75bp hike "at this point".

At 1330 BST, the Department of Commerce will publish personal income and spending figures covering the month of July, alongside key price gauges referencing that same month.

Commerce is also due to publish its advance estimate for foreign trade covering the same month.

They will be followed by final readings for the University of Michigan's consumer confidence index in August, including subindices linked to consumers' expectations as regards inflation on one and 5-10 year time frames.