Markets have rallied to multi-year highs on the wings of central bank easing hopes. Policymakers may be dovish as well, recognizing full well the impact of such monetary actions on voters’ assets. Both China and the ECB have made their moves, leaving room for Bernanke & Co to take action next week as well. Markets have grown increasingly uncertain that another round of quantitative easing will be undertaken at this month’s policy-setting meeting, despite Chairman Bernanke’s Jackson Hole testimony of the benefits of such measures in the past. However, behind-the-door negotiations for the Draghi plan certainly included US central bank influence, and leaving an ECB scheme that would drive the euro sharply higher, cutting further into the region’s export business, especially Germany’s, seems a brittle branch to have climbed without parallel assurances from US central bankers as well. |