After a rather eventful day, where demand for Spanish bonds at today’s auctions turned out much better than expected reflecting optimism that a compromise on the rescue of the Spanish banking sector isn’t far off and China finally after almost 4 years cut interest rates to counteract increasingly sluggish economic growth providing equity markets across Europe with a much needed strong lift to the upside, Fed Chief Bernanke in the end turned out be at least to a certain degree a bit of a party spoiler.

With speculations already running high especially after a slew of disappointing US economic data and today’s Chinese rate cut, that the Fed would announce a new bond buying program soon, Bernanke didn’t manage to live up to market expectations today instead proclaiming that while the Fed is ready to act if needed nothing has been decided yet in regard to QE3 causing markets to give back much of the earlier gains.

Markus Huber - Head of German HNW Trading - ETX Capital
www.etxcapital.com