Big Call on Interest Rates at Jackson Hole will Echo Around the World

The annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is a snooty affair even by the standards of the financial “masters of the universe”. Attendance is “limited” to about 120 Federal Reserve officials, central bankers, financial professionals and academics. Journalists are “selected”, expected to pay (horror!) for the privilege of an invitation, and are not allowed to “overwhelm or influence the proceedings”.

The meeting is quirkily held under the auspices of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, whose officials were apparently keen on fly fishing in mountain lakes to accompany their financial deliberations when the event was first held there in 1982.

In a normal year in the Rocky Mountain resort where it is staged it is all “gas at high altitude, which tends to cause flatulence”, as a participant once described it to me. (I’ve never been lucky enough to be “selected”.)

But 2024 is not a normal year. It is a US presidential election year, and the economics and finances of America will be under the microscope as voters weigh up Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris in November. Just as significantly, this year’s symposium comes at a crucial time for US and global financial markets. Read More>>