The key US stock indices (the S&P 500, Dow Jones, and NASDAQ) continue to adjust. Even despite the "collapse" of stock indices on Monday, at the moment, their entire downward movement cannot even be called a "correction" in the literal sense of the word. The problem is that the downward movement is too small to be considered a full-fledged correction. So far, this is only a "rollback." Thus, there is no panic in the stock market right now. But it can begin if the Fed announces the beginning of the completion of the asset purchase program today. Recall that in recent days, investors have begun to get rid of risky assets against the background of the possible bankruptcy of the Chinese construction company Evergrande. It is already being compared to Lehmann Brothers, the bankruptcy that gave rise to the mortgage crisis of 2008. However, from our point of view, the scale is not the same, and today's Fed meeting plays a much bigger role for investors.
The opinions of most experts today are divided into two branches. The former believe that the Fed will not delay and announce the QE program's curtailment today. It is supported by the representatives of the Fed's monetary committee themselves, who have repeatedly recently expressed their support for this step "as soon as possible." On the other hand, not all Fed members believe that this issue should be rushed. Thus, the curtailment of QE will be decided by a vote within the monetary committee, and the results of this vote cannot be predicted. The second branch believes that the Fed will announce the curtailment of QE no earlier than November. The latest macroeconomic data from the States were not the best. In particular, this applies to the report on Non-farms and inflation, which the Fed pays the most attention to. Non-farms in August were three times weaker than the values of July or June, and inflation began to slow down, but only by 0.1%. Thus, there are also enough factors that favor the opinion "we still need to wait." We believe that we should not speculate about what decision the Fed may make in the current situation. You need to wait for the publication of this decision. However, there is no doubt that we will have high volatility on the stock market, on the currency market, and even, possibly, on the cryptocurrency in the evening.
Recall that reducing the quantitative stimulus program will mean that less money will start flowing into the US economy out of nowhere. And less money for the US economy will also mean a decrease in the volume of investments in stocks and cryptocurrencies. Therefore, both the stock market and the cryptocurrency market may react with a decrease to the curtailment of QE. Recall that there are investors in any market who do not set their goal to buy assets for many years to come. Such investors sell off this or that asset as soon as there is any threat. And such a threat may be the Fed's decision to end QE.
