Wednesday, October 15, 2008

If you talk to Ben ...

...let him know that the market is ripe for an old-fashioned jawboning, right now, in the way Greenspan used to, with vague references to "directionalities", etc.

Bernanke should keep ahead of events, by setting expectations, showing how anticipatory he is going to be.

Things to watch out for, include everything on the list of potential, near-term blows to confidence, including:

  • -Important financing(s) that fail (cf. California in need of cash, large merger transactions that make sense to everyone). The history is that these "reverberate".
  • -Large bankruptcies (like GM?) that are ... dislocate and unnerve investors, despite being "widely anticipated".

He probably knows the list as well as anyone. Part of the effort is to get the public's expectations ... managed, to exhibit analytical confidence, even in the face of turmoil.

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