by Calculated Risk on 8/30/2015 08:27:00 PM

A September rate hike is still on the table, from Jon Hilsenrath and Ben Leubsdorf at the WSJ: Fed Appears to Hold Line on Rate Plan

Federal Reserve officials emerged from a week of head-spinning financial turbulence largely sticking to their plan to raise U.S. interest rates before the end of the year.

During the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City’s annual economic symposium here, many policy makers signaled that stock-market volatility and China’s woes haven’t seriously dented their view that the U.S. job market is improving, and that domestic economic output is expanding at a steady, modest pace.
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“There is good reason to believe that inflation will move higher as the forces holding inflation down—oil prices and import prices, particularly—dissipate further,” said Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer in comments delivered to the conference, which ended Saturday.

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of August 30, 2015

Monday:
• At 9:45 AM ET, the Chicago Purchasing Managers Index for August. The consensus is for a reading of 54.9, up from 54.7 in July.

• At 10:30 AM, the Dallas Fed Manufacturing Survey for August.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: currently S&P futures are down 18 and DOW futures are down 140 (fair value).

Oil prices were up over the last week with WTI futures at $44.85 per barrel and Brent at $49.41 per barrel.  A year ago, WTI was at $98, and Brent was at $101 - so prices are down over 50% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.47 per gallon (down almost $1.00 per gallon from a year ago).  Gasoline prices will probably continue to decline over the next month or more (follow oil prices down).