The Fed is widely expected at this week's meeting to announce another rate hike of 0.75 percentage points, three times its usual margin. Investors are looking for signs officials are satisfied that earlier increases imposed to cool inflation that is near a four-decade high are working and future increases can be smaller.
Core inflation, which removes volatile food and energy prices to show the underlying trend, accelerated to 5.1% from August's 4.9%. Powell and other Fed officials have said they are ready to keep interest rates elevated until they are sure inflation is extinguished. Wall Street ended last week higher after Apple and other big companies reported strong profits and a closely watched measure of inflation accelerated in September. Among the companies reporting earnings this week are Pfizer, Uber, CVS Health and Starbucks.
In European trading at midday, Germany's DAX gained 0.3%, Britain's FTSE 100 picked up 0.2% and the CAC 40 in Paris lost 0.2%.