Before we talk about the blogosphere paparazzi, allow me to set one thing straight: I don'd like the Federal Reserve and I'm not sticking up for the Federal Reserve.
The Federal Reserve is an institution set up by bankers for bankers, an insurance company for the bankster mafia.
However, an analyst, reporter, journalist, or blogger should be driven by facts, not personal biases or dislikes. Just because an institution has a closet 'packed with skeletons' doesn't give us the right to invent misleading information.
It's no secret that the Federal Reserve has been pumping money in the market, sending indexes like the S&P 500 (^GSPC) and Dow Jones (^DJI) to never before seen highs; in the process enriching the very banksters that caused the worst financial collapse since the Great Depression.
The Federal Reserve is the deserving scapegoat for many wrongs committed on Wall Street.
But publishing sensationalized and misleading reports just for the sake of capturing attention is bad for investors. How so?
Just recently, a very popular blog stated that "QEternity may have to be increased by 50% in the coming year."
This claim was based on this tweet by the president of the Chicago Federal Reserve, Charles Evans (see original tweet below):
"Our purchases will continue to be open ended. We may need to purchase 1.5 trillion in assets until January 2015."
According to Evans' tweet, the Fed may need to purchase $1.5 trillion in assets until January.
How Does $1.5 T Compare to Current Asset Purchase Pace?
Based on the assumption that the Fed is buying $85 billion worth of bonds per month ($1.02 trillion/year), we can see where the 50% increase claim is coming from.
View enlarged liquidity chart here
However, the haphazard calculation overlooks the fact that the Federal Reserve is ALREADY spending an additional $25 billion per month on reinvestment of maturing bonds. Is that what Charles Evans may have meant?
Mortal humans just don't have the ability to decode the enigma-like messages of Federal Reserve personnel, but based on the numbers in Evans's statement it could mean that asset purchases will continue at the same pace or that asset purchases may only increase 26% - $85 b x 14 (November 2013 - January 2014) compared to $1.5 trillion.
This conclusion is less sensationalistic, but it won't persuade investors to buy into the S&P 500 ETF or Dow Jones ETF (DIA) just because the Fed may beef up asset purchases.
It's not necessary to 'enhance' Federal Reserve news to make them more interesting. The Federal Reserve is quite capable of making fools of themselves without anyone else's help.