Afternoon Action

Well the FED makes nothing easy. They are "ending" the QE program but extending it through October. This is seems like a punt in that the they could reverse course if they so desired. It buys time. In general, I see this as bearish however and was shorting after the announcement as I said I was going to to do if they did not increase the amount of the QE program. However, I did not short as hard as I would have because of the market reaction and the fuzziness of it. The market may have another spurt, I don't know but I am more comfortable shorting with no amount increase of the QE than if they would have added to the overall notional value of the program. The market ended lower than when the announcement was made and below 1008. I think you have to take that as bearish.

In general the market is in the mode, no matter what the news it is bullish. If they increased the amount of the QE program than means more money hitting the economy, so buy. If they don't extend the QE program than that means the economy is great and they don't need to, so buy. Just the market we live in right now.

The most interesting thing was the dollar. It spiked hard and then sold off hard. I would have thought it would have kept its gains. I find that concerning from a bearish perspective.

As I am typing this I see headlines that investor John Paulson bought 168 million news. This isn't really news. He participated in the secondary offering months ago, this was well known. It wasn't totally clear whether he used that to cover short or actually go long but that headline is not really news.