Market Surges on QE3 Suggestion

Today Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke indicated that fiscal stimulus programs would be available in the future as needed, ala QE3. The SPY spiked sharply on this news as the US dollar dropped.

The Bernanke Effect

This should come as no surprise and is clearly the cause of yesterday's short-lived spike on the SPY at around 2pm ET. From my perspective, there is no way Ben Bernanke would ever say something the markets could interpret negatively. Fiscal stimulus comes in the form of soothing words just as often as it's monetary, and it's an area where the Fed has unlimited ammunition.

Prolonging the Fed's quantitative easing program means a weakened US dollar, and that will inflate the markets--just what we're seeing on the SPY intraday. It's unclear if this rally will hold, but a continually devalued US dollar will continue to push the markets up.

Despite all this seemingly bullish news, it's important to remember that Europe is still in trouble and those issues will not go away overnight. Any developments on this front (downgrades, defaults, etc...) will hit the Euro hard and therefore the markets.

In the event of a falling Euro and a rising US dollar, Ben Bernanke and his team at the Fed will have almost insurmountable task ahead of them in supporting this market. But until then, it's up up and away (for equities and commodities)!