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.

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.

What will Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell signal about interest rates at this year's Jackson Hole gathering? The central-bank gathering has sometimes been a venue for marking shifts in Fed policy,