“MOOD IMPROVES ON HOPES FOR ECB ACTION” (September 5, 2012)
Thus the Financial Times today. “Global growth concerns temper risk asset gains,” elaborates the newspaper. The European Central Bank is in the investors’ focus, though. They are trying to guess what will the bank’s president, Mario Draghi, tell them tomorrow, but they are all over the place in their guessing. All stockmarket indices have been seesawing all day long. Up and down. Back and forth. Ridiculous. On days like this one, it is perfectly clear how confused investors can get. As the indices testify, they can get mightily confused, indeed. Now, forget about global growth in this context. It has come to a halt, and that is all there is to it. Investors know it well enough. All they are wondering about at this juncture is what Draghi will tell them tomorrow. That is, will he promise to print more euros or not? The same holds for Ben Bernanke, the Fed chairman, who will come into the investors’ focus in a week or maybe two. Will he promise to print more dollars or not? And that is all that poor investors actually wonder about. The old Ben and Mario show. The rest is well beyond the investors’ ken, anyhow.