Today, Ben Bernanke took a risk. In an laudable effort to bring greater transparency to Fed thinking, he held the first press conference ever for a Fed Head. There was lots of anxiety that he would accidentally say something, and the market would over-react to it. Fortunately, it was a wonderful non-event.
The talking heads are arguing whether he ruled out QE3 or not. I think he did not and would have been foolish if he had. Never throw ammunition overboard! (He is still not concerned about inflation, but he wasn't concerned about subprime mortgages either.)
Otherwise, he did great! In relief, the Dow rose another 60 points after his talk, closing up 95 . . . whew!
Now, we can start fretting about the Jobless Continuing Claims and Q1 GDP tomorrow . . . the risk trade is still on! Party On . . .
