The buck is well bid and gold is falling out of bed. Get your taper flags out folks.
It may be two weeks until the FOMC (with bonus presser), but none of that is going to matter if the jobs data hits pay dirt tomorrow. We know the taper is a 99% done deal and tomorrow will be the icing on the cake. Bernanke will have his ‘get out of jail’ card by being able to proclaim the recovery as the reason for tapering not because there’s some weak bladders developing within the Fed.
I’ve been a firm believer that the market has discounted the discomfort of those at the Fed (and everywhere else), with regards to the printing presses continuing at full blast, and it looks like that discomfort is going to fall by the wayside. That’s obviously good from a fundamental point of view but not from a truthful perspective. All we’ll hear is that QE worked and was low risk and they’ll be fanfares and parties and sex on the beaches.
What we won’t hear is how America dodged a potential bullet and that’s not good. Some academic will come out with a “What could have happened” scenario but will be laughed away.
I may be getting ahead of myself as the US is far from out of the woods, but my trading has been halted somewhat by the taper question of will it be a good or bad taper? It looks like I may have my answer and the non farms will be the last piece of the jigsaw. If it comes in good, you can call me a bull.
