The Federal Reserve spikes the markets' punch bowl

It is now a virtual certainty that the Federal Reserve will cut interest rates at the end of this month. And liquidity-addicted markets do love easy money.

Council of Economic Advisers © Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images

Herbert Stein (left): "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop"
(Image credit: Council of Economic Advisers © Wally McNamee/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty Images)

"There is something profoundly depressing about the market's obsession with US monetary policy," says Jonathan Allum in The Blah! newsletter. Nave souls might have thought that Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell's decision to "accentuate the negative" while giving testimony to Congress last week would spook markets.

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Markets editor

Alex is an investment writer who has been contributing to MoneyWeek since 2015. He has been the magazine’s markets editor since 2019. 

Alex has a passion for demystifying the often arcane world of finance for a general readership. While financial media tends to focus compulsively on the latest trend, the best opportunities can lie forgotten elsewhere. 

He is especially interested in European equities – where his fluent French helps him to cover the continent’s largest bourse – and emerging markets, where his experience living in Beijing, and conversational Chinese, prove useful. 

Hailing from Leeds, he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford. He also holds a Master of Public Health from the University of Manchester.