Bernanke Rewind – The Fed Head’s same old words

Chuck Butler (The Daily Reckoning):

What a ride yesterday for the currencies! Gold? Well, at one point gold had shot up $24 on the day! It topped out at $1,142… The shiny metal then gave some back on profit taking, but gold holders have got to love it! Those who keep waiting for a pullback. Well, they might still be waiting when the cows come home.

Yesterday, we had a couple of Fed Heads talking, but the Big Kahuna stood out and moved the markets with his statements… Here’s the skinny…

Big Ben was giving a speech, and said, “The Fed will monitor closely the currencies, and the Fed’s policies will ensure that the dollar is strong.” Now, when he first uttered those words, the dollar got bought and the non-dollar currencies were sold… But then, a few of us had this feeling… It was a feeling that we had heard all this before… And there – in the archives, circa June 2008 – Bernanke said, “In collaboration with our colleagues at the Treasury, we continue to carefully monitor developments in foreign exchange markets.” Wait! We won’t get fooled again!

In June 2008, his statements spooked the markets into believing the Fed was really going to do something to bolster the dollar… But when nothing came along, the dollar REALLY got sold until the financial meltdown of August 2008… I mean… What has the Fed done in the past 1 1/2 years to “bolster the dollar”? Near zero interest rates that will remain in place for longer than they should… Quantitative easing… A bloated balance sheet of toxic bonds.

You could see the V-8 moments on traders’ faces when they realized, yesterday, that all this had been said before, and nothing came of it, so… We won’t get fooled again!

So, then traders reversed their buying of the dollar and sent the dollar to the woodshed. You should have seen the reversal… It was amazing…

Click here to read the rest of Mr. Butler’s article.