Highlights of the Federal Reserve speech from

Must be confident underlying inflation is moving to objective or, we have work to do
I would be hard pressed to describe broad financial conditions as restrictive.
While this summer’s PCE and CPI readings were better than expected, they do not tell me that underlying trends have meaningfully improved.
Overall economy appears to have strengthened
Credit and loan markets showing few signs of policy restraint
Inflation expectations tend to look durable until they don’t, must be closely mined
Business investment rising rapidly
Important to gauge effects of high growth expectations for capex, corporate earnings
Market prices show confidence that we will deliver price stability
Full text

“We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective, clearly and at sufficient speed. Otherwise, we have work to do,” he said. His answer at the moment appears to be that he’s not confident but he isn’t strongly signaling it.

Ahead of the speech, the market was pricing in a 33% chance of a hike on September 16. The S&P 500 was up 7 points and the yen was trading at 159.57.

This reads to me like he’s strongly leaning towards a hike.