The Fed stays hawkish and it's decision time in Beijing

All eyes were on the Jackson Hole meeting in Wyoming, noted mining audiences manager Michael McCrae.

On Friday McCrae recorded Kitco Roundtable with correspondent Paul Harris and Stillwater Critical Minerals' CEO Michael Rowley.

Stillwater Critical Minerals (TSX.V: PGE | OTCQB: PGEZF) is a Canadian mineral exploration company focused on its flagship Stillwater West Ni-PGE-Cu-Co + Au project in the Stillwater mining district of Montana, U.S. 2023 drilling is currently underway. In the spring the company received an investment from mining giant Glencore.

On Friday Fed Chair Jerome Powell gave a much-anticipated speech at the key economic gathering striking a hawkish tone on U.S. monetary policy, saying that the inflation fight is not finished and the Fed still “has a long way to go” to get inflation tamed.

Powell said the U.S. economy may not be cooling down like the Fed wants to see in order to choke off inflationary pressures. He also noted that the U.S. central bank is prepared to raise interest rates further, if warranted.

Bottom line from Fed observers: hawkish, but not that hawkish.

The world's largest diversified miner, BHP Billiton, released its fiscal year end. BHP had its weakest annual profits in three years – weighed down by soft iron ore prices. China’s sluggish economic revival and the West’s hawkish response to inflation were hurting the miner's numbers.

Regarding China, the key commodity country's economic fate is in the government's hands. BHP wrote that trajectory is contingent on the effectiveness of recent policy measures.