The stock market is heading into a catalyst-filled week as Fed Chair Jerome Powell gets ready to speak at Jackson Hole and big retailers report earnings.

Get insights on the 2023 Fed Symposium in Jackson Hole. Explore market expectations, Powell's agenda, and potential rate cuts' impact on the economy.

Incoming information has confounded Fed Chair Jerome Powell's data-dependent strategy by pulling in both directions.

MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan slid 0.2 per cent in early trading, after US stocks ended the previous session with mild losses

Jerome Powell has the ideal platform Friday to deliver a clear signal the Federal Reserve is about to resume cutting interest rates. But the economy isn’t giving him an equally clear signal that now is the time.

Stocks start the week just shy of record highs, underpinned by a well-received corporate earnings season and hopes the Federal Reserve will soon start reducing official borrowing costs again. Investors are therefore keen that Friday’s keynote address by Fed Chair Jerome Powell at the Jackson Hole symposium will be suitably dovish.