These Fed decisions used to be so much more interesting. Now all Ben Bernanke has to do is follow the herd. He is now "seeing signs of consumer spending stabilizing" - gee, thanks for the memo. After a generational short squeeze in the Consumer Discretionary stocks, it's good to see that someone over at the Fed still pays attention to prices that are being marked-to-market.
Heli-Ben's decision making process is perfectly predictable at this point. This is feeding a baby bear market in the VIX, and being long this stock market, I am cool with that. On the margin, proactively predictable behavior provides a capitalist with opportunity. Now that the man has cut to zero, the only thing left is to do is "employ all the available tools" that will ensure that the free money machines remain open for business.
In the end, this politicization of the US Federal Reserve compromises the long standing integrity of the US Dollar. And I guess, as sad it is, this will continue to REFLATE asset prices from a rational price levels.
KM
