Agency: Employment report appears to be more important than inflation

In remarks at the Jackson Hole conference, Federal Reserve Chairperson Jerome Powell stressed the importance of the US jobs data for the upcoming monetary easing cycle. Stephen Stanley of Santander said in a note that this adds to the importance of the August jobs data, which will be released on September 6. He said that after the unexpectedly subdued job growth in July, "August's growth will not be a complete shock. More broadly, Powell and others at the Fed have recently begun to express concerns about cooling labor market conditions, so stronger August data could dispel the idea of a 50 basis point rate cut next month." Stanley believes the jobs report could be more critical than August's core CPI data.