Will the Fed pause interest rate cuts this year? Powell is about to speak, providing important clues.

Last week, driven by multiple factors including the U.S. election situation and the Fed's interest rate cuts, all three major U.S. stock indices posted gains, with the Dow Jones and S&P 500 both increasing by over 4.6% for the week, marking the best weekly performance in nearly a year. The Nasdaq, which is dominated by tech stocks, saw a cumulative increase of over 5.7%.

Last week, international oil prices rose by more than 1%.

Regarding oil prices, due to Hurricane 'Rafael' still having some impact on oil production in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, last week, both the main contracts for U.S. oil and Brent oil rose by more than 1%.

This week, the U.S. October CPI and PPI data are in focus.

Turning our attention to this week, the U.S. October CPI data set to be released on Wednesday and the October PPI data on Thursday are closely watched by market participants. Wells Fargo economists expect the year-on-year increase in the U.S. October CPI may rise from 2.4% in September to 2.5%.

This week, the Federal Reserve Chairman will give a speech. The market expects the pace of interest rate cuts by the Fed next year may slow down.

The potential upward inflation risks in the U.S. also add more uncertainty to the Fed's upcoming monetary policy. On Thursday, local time, Federal Reserve Chairman Powell will attend a dialogue event at the Dallas Fed, where he will deliver a speech, and investors may look for more clues. Last week, the Fed held a meeting and lowered the target range for the federal funds rate by 25 basis points, in line with market expectations. Although Powell did not provide any clues about potentially pausing interest rate cuts in the short term during the post-meeting press conference, expectations on Wall Street for the Fed to slow down the pace of rate cuts are still heating up. Nomura economists have revised the expected number of Fed rate cuts next year from four to one. Deutsche Bank also believes there is a possibility that the Fed may pause rate cuts in December this year.

The European Central Bank will release the minutes of the October monetary policy meeting this week.

In Europe, the European Central Bank will release the minutes of the October monetary policy meeting this Thursday, and investors can focus on the ECB's specific analysis of inflation and economic growth. Recent data shows that inflation in the eurozone has fallen below the ECB's 2% target, thus economic growth is becoming an increasing focus for the ECB. The European Commission will also release the revised year-on-year GDP figures for the eurozone in the third quarter of this year. CCTV Finance will keep a close eye on this.