Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell delivered a speech at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, honoring George Shultz, without addressing current economic conditions or monetary policy. Market participants had anticipated potential insights into interest rate decisions ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting, but Powell explicitly avoided these topics. Despite Powell's previous caution that a rate cut is "not a foregone conclusion," the CME Fedwatch Tool indicates an 87% probability of a 25-basis-point rate cut at the December meeting.