I don’t want to be right about my of my dire predictions, but all signs point to a significant global slowdown:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904353504576566142076103776.html
The Fed is coming out at 2:15 pm to announce the results of their policy meeting. Many expect a variation of the 1960s “Operation Twist” where they sell their short-dated maturities and buy long-dated maturities:
If they were to do this, it would actually hurt the large and regional banks because they would be borrowing at a higher rate and lending at a lower rate — but it may help the consumer, at least short term, buy making mortgages and revolving debt less expensive:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903285704576560823162096888.html
They downside is that any more monetization of debt will likely be perceived as inflationary and send speculators in to commodities (including energy and agriculture) which could cause a rise in consumer prices.
I think they may even have to perform some more aggressive monetary policy measures given that the US dollar money market funds in Europe are drying up — and the EU banks are in bigger trouble than our banks:
If they announce nothing new, which is in my opinion extraordinarily unlikely given that this is a longer than usual Fed meeting (something we hadn’t seen since the last rounds of QE) I think there will be a significant market sell-off and a head and shoulders topping pattern may play out:
http://mootrades.com/2011/09/17/head-and-shoulders-setup-on-major-indices/
Whatever is done by the Fed is only a short term piecemeal solution to a broader, more structural problem with bank and sovereign balance sheets — and in my opinion it only delays any real resolution.
