So HBen indicates QE may ease up, what does speculation thinK?

[jubalix]

[1] Is this a ruse,
[2]does it effect anything,
[3]does it not matter as some other financial collapse somewhere must happen due to mismanagement

My view is gov's are so out of market discipline via tax base that it guarantees colossal fk ups that can only get bigger as time goes on.

BTC is the rod of reproof and it shall drive foolishness far from them

(them = gov, and most people who have no idea about FIAT, FRB, CCR's etc)

[torba]

lol nope

[dave111223]

Personally I think if the Fed are able to ease QE the value of Bitcoin will take a hit, as I think a lot of Bitcoin holders (such as myself) are of the opinion that cutting QE will precipitate a massive financial crash.

If no crash comes it will prove a lot of us wrong and we will probably become disillusioned.

In the *very* long run Bitcoin is still useful and will win the day, but without any fiat financial crash that timeline is massively extended.

Frankly if QE 'works' I may as well take my brain out and stick on a shelf as my logic is screwed

[zachcope]

QE is crack to the developed countries central banks

[Zangelbert Bingledack]

Not a chance they will ease up.

[Stringer Bell]

It's like a junkie agreeing to go to re-hab while still high.

[afbitcoins]

Ben Bernanke is bluffing. It is extremely unlikely they will do this because they seem to prefer to have a hyperinflation rather than a great depression. It seems likely the FED wants everyone to beg them to keep the cheap money flowing so they can appear to be knights in shining armor stepping in again to save the system rather than be viewed as the irresponsible bankers that caused the mess.

The major central banks are playing tag team at the moment (US$ UK£ euro, yen), taking turns to inflate their monetary supply (with exception of the euro for now) so the can all fall together. One unwelcome (or welcome depending on your view) side effect is that inflation is being exported to developing countries and so far not being felt strongly at home. In the global markets as they are today it doesn't even really matter which central bank is doing the easing. As long as at least one of the main central banks has their foot on the gas the game keeps going.

[Qoheleth]

I think he intends to stop buying bonds. But the keyword there is that it's his intent, not necessarily what he'll actually do when push comes to shove. After all, all he had to do was remind people that QE wasn't going to last forever, and the Nasdaq slid 3.5%.

Actually doing it, without destroying all the market confidence that we've been slowly recovering over the past few years, is going to be quite a trick.

As for its effects on the bitcoin market.... whenever news of this kind hits, it bumps up the trade value of the national currency (after all, when people are afraid of assets losing value, they flee to what they consider to be current), which means it's short-term bearish for BTC even if the BTC/USD exchange rate isn't affected (because it makes USD more valuable).

The long-term effect on the price depends entirely on how smoothly the bond market can get weaned off of QE. Lack of confidence in centrally-administered currencies is certainly one way to make people consider Bitcoin-like systems more seriously.

[vokain]

we can't get too caught up in worrying about tapering

There is no doubt that the Fed will eventually have to not only "taper" QE, but also stop it completely and go into reverse. The alternative would be to destroy the currency and the economy via hyperinflation. However, it's not reasonable to refer to the inevitability of reduced monetary accommodation as a plan. We aren't dealing with master strategists; we are dealing with bungling bureaucrats who are constantly reacting in knee-jerk fashion to financial-market and economic events that they never see coming. Something happens and the Fed reacts. The reaction distorts prices and leads to unintended consequences, prompting another Fed reaction, and so on. In other words, although the Fed may well talk about an "exit plan", it actually has no clue what it will do in the future. What it does will be dictated by events it can't predict.

[...]

We now turn to the relationship between the gold market and "QE tapering". Although talk of the Fed's QE tapering has caused significant short-term fluctuations in the gold price and will no doubt continue to do so, the gold price is likely to embark on a major advance from this year's low almost regardless of what the Fed does from here on. The reason is that the damage (the basis for the next major gold advance) is already in place thanks to the QE that has happened up until now. What we've seen, to date, are the positive effects that almost always appear during the initial phase of a monetary expansion. These initial positive effects are why monetary inflation remains popular with the masses despite its debilitating long-term consequences. Unfortunately, it is never possible to know ahead of time how long the positive initial phase will last. What we do know is that just as surely as night follows day, the negative consequences will eventually rise to the surface. Gold benefits from these negative consequences of monetary inflation rather than the monetary inflation itself.

[Frozenlock]

I think he intends to stop buying bonds. But the keyword there is that it's his intent, not necessarily what he'll actually do when push comes to shove. After all, all he had to do was remind people that QE wasn't going to last forever, and the Nasdaq slid 3.5%.

The asian market has been down for almost a month, Europe closely following...
But when it hits the US, it's because of the QE tapering talk.

 

'Murica!

[Qoheleth]

I think he intends to stop buying bonds. But the keyword there is that it's his intent, not necessarily what he'll actually do when push comes to shove. After all, all he had to do was remind people that QE wasn't going to last forever, and the Nasdaq slid 3.5%.

The asian market has been down for almost a month, Europe closely following...
But when it hits the US, it's because of the QE tapering talk.

 

'Murica!

I'm guessing your implication here is that the Nasdaq drop was due to the global downtrend rather than anything Bernanke happened to say? That's definitely one interpretation. But given that Asia and Europe have been "down for almost a month" with Nasdaq looking healthy, it's hard for me to look at the drop happening the same day as Bernanke's speech and write it off as coincidence.

[meanig]

It's all just a clever ruse. Watching the markets go into free fall with only the mention of tapering will be enough justification for them to continue the QE.

QE is never going to end. They're never going to do the right thing. If they ever had the intention of doing the right thing they would have done it long ago.

[smoothie]

Perhaps his easing will be very short lived if it is real at all.

Time will tell.