As Fed registers gains, Powell may take a lay low approach

Inflation has been falling. The unemployment rate is a low 3.5%. The U.S. economy has avoided a threatened banking crisis and financial markets have not only aligned with the Federal Reserve's tight-credit policies but of late even helped the process by bidding up market interest rates.

When Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivers a keynote speech at a central bank research symposium hosted by the Kansas City Fed here on Friday, that copacetic backdrop may inspire a message shaped mostly to avoid trouble.

With no clear crisis to address and no public...