(FT) -- Investors are braced for a week of crucial economic data that could decide the Federal Reserve's next move after chairman Ben Bernanke said it would ease policy if the outlook deteriorated "significantly".
Attention will focus on latest US employment figures on Friday, expected to underscore recent signs of a slowdown in the world's largest economy.
But analysts cautioned that there was no guarantee of early Fed action despite Mr Bernanke's pledge at the central bank's conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, at the weekend that it would "do all that it can" to boost the faltering recovery.
Economists at Goldman Sachs, among the most bearish on Wall Street, argued that Mr Bernanke's speech suggested that the central bank was taking a "minimalist approach" to further action for the time being. "The overall tone was one of watch and wait, despite ongoing signs that US economic activity has not only dropped below its potential growth rate but has a significant probability of weakening further, at least as we see it," they wrote.
Joe LaVorgna, chief US economist at Deutsche Bank, agreed that the Fed did not appear ready to pull the trigger on additional monetary easing: "A meaningful deterioration in the outlook -- ie financial market disruptions or a stalled labour recovery -- would be necessary to push them into action". CNN
