- The Fed issued minutes from the most recent FOMC meeting, and the release caused a bit of a kerfuffle in equity markets. The consternation came from the revelation that a majority of Fed officials think tapering of the bond buying program could begin before the end of this year.
- Other factors, including a deteriorating Covid environment, China’s continuing tech sector crackdown and the situation in Afghanistan, took some value off of a variety of assets from small-cap stocks to industrial and energy commodities to Chinese and Hong Kong indexes.
- Flagging demand was the problem QE set out to solve, but demand is not the problem now. Consumer confidence is higher than at any time since 2018, and personal consumption expenditures drove robust Q2 GDP performance. Today’s big problem is on the supply side.
For further details see:
What's The Point Of QE?