US Equity Investors to Focus on Ukraine Talks, Powell's Jackson Hole Speech, FOMC Minutes This Week

06:19 AM EDT, 08/18/2025 (MT Newswires) -- US equity investors will focus on Ukraine-Russia peace negotiations, the Jackson Hole Symposium of central bankers and the minutes from the July Federal Reserve monetary policy meeting in which two panel members dissented from the rate-setting committee's joint decision to keep interest rates unchanged.

* Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy will be joined by key European leaders -- British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz -- when he meets with US President Donald Trump on Monday, according to media reports. Trump says Zelenskyy must agree to some of Russia's conditions, including ceding Crimea and agreeing never to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, for the war to end, CNN reported. Trump is now focused on securing a peace deal sans a ceasefire, US envoy Steve Witkoff told CNN.

* The week will also see the beginning of the Jackson Hole Symposium, a meeting of global central bankers, which this week will be watched even more closely as the Fed Chair Jerome Powell on Friday could use the podium to signal the restart of monetary policy easing in September.

* Macroeconomic data due next week includes July's building permits and housing starts as well as existing home sales, and the FOMC's July 29-30 meeting minutes, which, for the first time in decades, had two dissenters.

* Two Fed Governors, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman, dissented in the FOMC meeting as they sought rate cuts. Investors will want to know the reasons behind the dovish stance as it is in line with President Trump's calls to ease policy and help manage US government debt. Powell's term is due to come to an end in May next year.

* The odds of a 25-basis-point cut in interest rates in September stood at 85%, down from 99.99% Wednesday last week but up from 56% a month ago, according to the CME FedWatch Tool on Monday. The remaining 15% probability is for rates to remain unchanged, versus 41% a month earlier.

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