In a closely anticipated speech yesterday, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, stopped short of signaling his views on the economy and interest rates, leaving Wall Street in the rare position of considering multiple interest-rate scenarios just one week ahead of a Fed policy meeting.

Mr. Bernanke’s prepared remarks to a German central bank conference, which were largely academic, stayed on the topic of global current account imbalances. He repeated his longstanding assertion that elements of the “global saving glut remain in place.”

But it’s what Mr. Bernanke left out — namely, any mention of current economic or monetary policy issues — that will likely disappoint investors.

The Federal Open Market Committee is widely expected to lower the federal funds rate, the rate at which banks lend to each other, for the first time in over four years in order to limit the effect of a housing a credit squeeze on the overall economy. Yet recent economic data, as well as remarks Monday by several Fed officials, have left open the question of whether the Fed will cut by 25 or 50 basis points or, though it’s highly unlikely, leave rates unchanged.