Fail-Safe Or Not Fail-Safe? - January 26, 2012

[Pascal]

Many thanks, Pascal, looking at the raw data is always best.

Out of curiosity, if you were to look back at the market reversal that triggered at the "near miss" and assuming that we are indeed in a stealth QE environment, would you be able to trace its start (ie when those who move the market got the clue that QE3 is inevitable, whether formally announced or not) back to that date?

Trader D

The rally started around Dec 19, which was an EOY Santa rally and nothing else.
Then, the MF stayed very weak until Jan 18.
So, I believe that if money started moving in, it was on Jan 18.
However, nothing really impressive at that date: more like a "European no-bad-news" relief rally than anything else.

Then, yesterday's announcement, which does not say clearly that we have QE3. However, zero interest rates implies QE3. So, we are trading this implication. However, we start to hear Obama talking about new taxes then next step might be spending cuts/protection against imports. These policies are also what is being pushed out in Europe.

These policies will take a long time to be played out... Much longer than stealth printing. So the market is probably trading a short term event first.


Pascal