It's interesting to note the change (in Bernake's comments or in the media spin on them???) from his WSJ article and his speech to Congress, in which he said: “limited inflation pressures” will allow policy makers to keep interest rates near zero for an “extended period.” No hikes then until the next Dreamtime.
Anyway, the punters seem to like it. According to Bloomberg "Global investors give Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke top marks for combating the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression and overwhelmingly favor his reappointment amid optimism that the world economy is on the mend.
Sixty-one percent of investors surveyed in the first Quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll say the world economy is stable or improving and almost 75 percent take a favorable view of the 55-year-old chairman. By almost a three-to-one margin, they say Bernanke has earned another four-year term when his current one expires in January.
“He’s the best, maybe around the world,” said Wallace Lin, an investment manager with Euro Asset Management in Hong Kong...
“If he weren’t renominated, it could have potentially very serious and severe repercussions on the stock market and the economy,” said Jack Liebau, a poll participant and president of Pasadena, California-based Liebau Asset Management Co."
