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Investors are craving new guidance in Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s Jackson Hole, Wyoming, speech Friday. Still, he could instead deliver the same inflation-fighting message, just with a much tougher edge.

Fed watchers say Powell is also unlikely to provide any substantive clues to resolve the market debate about whether the central bank will raise rates by a half point or three-quarters of a point at its next policy meeting on Sept. 21. 

“The challenge for Powell is going to be the tone he adopts. I think he came across as slightly too dovish, not hawkish enough in July,” said David Page, head of macroeconomic research at AXA Investment Managers. “I think he wants to avoid that now, with markets expecting him to be relatively hawkish. ... It’s a very difficult game. It’s a game of expectations. ... It becomes a fine tune issue.”

Stocks soared after Powell’s comments following the July meeting and bond yields plummeted, suggesting that markets perceived the chairman to be more dovish or easy regarding interest rate expectations. But in the last week, bond yields have surged following hawkish comments from other Fed officials.

“The difficulty he will have is there’s already quite an expectation that he’s going to be quite hawkish, so he has to be at least quite hawkish for that rally not to happen,” said Page.

The message from last year’s Jackson Hole symposium was completely different. Powell was still characterizing inflation as “transitory” and Fed expectations for rate hikes were much lower.

“It was a lower for longer policy stance,” said Michael Gapen, chief U.S. economist at Bank of America. “Compared to that, this is going to sound super hawkish.” But the environment has changed dramatically since then, too, as inflation showed itself to be persistent rather than passing. Consumer inflation topped out at 9.1% in June, and it may have just peaked — months after the Fed had first expected.

“I think that will be the message - we’re going to slow down at some point. We’re tightening, but don’t expect a quick shift to cuts,” said Gapen.

Powell said after the July Fed meeting that the central bank could downsize the rate cuts at some point, but he did not mention reversing them, Gapen said.

“As monetary policy was premised lower for longer and needing a hot labor market, this is higher for longer and not needing a hot labor market in order to achieve price stability,” said Gapen.

Fed watchers say Powell may have confused market expectations when he said after July’s Fed meeting that the central bank was close to the neutral rate. The neutral rate is the level where the Fed does not have to raise or lower rates, and it had long been considered by central bank Fed officials to be 2.5%.