Bernanke’s ‘Shocking’ Announcement

Posted by Brianna Panzica – Friday, August 31st, 2012
 

This morning, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke at the annual Jackson Hole symposium, but his comments revealed little about the Fed’s future plans.

Shocking. Bernanke gave another vague speech, hinting at QE3, but not officially announcing it. Did you expect otherwise?

Per usual, he didn’t shut down the idea of a further round of quantitative easing, expectations for which have reached an all time high, as shown by this Bank of America chart posted by Zero Hedge:

No, he didn’t disappoint these expectations… he simply dragged them out further.

From the Financial Times:

“Taking due account of the uncertainties and limits of its policy tools, the Federal Reserve will provide additional policy accommodations as needed to promote a stronger economic recovery and sustained improvement in labour market conditions,” said the Fed chairman.

He engaged more directly with current Fed policy than in his 2011 speech at the Fed’s annual gathering in the Wyoming mountains, but did not break new policy ground as he did in a famous speech in 2010.

This essentially fit the expectations of Bank of America that Bernanke would promise more action if the markets declined further or failed to improve and that he would stress the importance of the Fed’s policy action without actually announcing anything.

But Bernanke did admit that the Fed was aware of the risks associated with more unconventional policies:

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