What to look for at Fed's Jackson Hole symposium

STORY: Global economic leaders have flown in from around the world to Jackson Hole, Wyoming for the central bank's annual symposium.

For investors, it's a pivotal moment - one that could signal when the Fed may begin to start cutting interest rates, and by how much.

The marquee event is Fed Chair Jerome Powell's speech on Friday.

Reuters reporter Ann Saphir is there.

"The unemployment rate jumped to 4.3% last month. Does he view this as a re-balanacing, or does he view this as perhaps more weakness than really what he wants to see? This could be a key as to whether the Fed starts with a normal-size rate cut of a quarter of a percentage point - this is what most people expect the Fed to do - or whether it will need to, either in September or another meeting later on, go to a bigger half-point rate cut to prevent the economy from cooling too fast."

The event kicked off just one day after annual payroll data from the Labor Department was revised down sharply, suggesting the labor market might be cracking much faster than expected.

But the report hasn't appeared to rattle some of Jackson Hole's chief decision-makers.

"You can see behind me, actually, Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid, has his back to me. He spoke earlier this morning saying that he feels the labor market looks very healthy and that we have time to look for [other] data to guide us on when rate cuts should come. Other policy makers speaking today, like the Boston Fed chief Susan Collins told us that because the labor market is healthy, we need to make sure that we preserve that, and in order to preserve that we do need to start rate cuts soon, she said."

As for the event itself, it's three days of academics and antlers: a place where the world's wonkiest economic types mingle in the native home of elk, deer and moose.

Many even take time for a hike - and not of interest rates.