What does QE2 mean for your investments?

The US Federal Reserve is planning to pump another $600bn into America's ailing economy. Whether it will help the 'real' economy is uncertain. But it's already having an impact on asset prices. John Stepek explains what it means for your investments.

Federal Reserve chief Ben Bernanke delivered just what financial markets were looking for last night.

The Fed is planning to buy roughly $75bn of government bonds a month between now and the middle of next year. That's $600bn in total. Stocks went up, the dollar slipped back, yet gold didn't go haywire (although it's up again this morning).

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John Stepek

John Stepek is a senior reporter at Bloomberg News and a former editor of MoneyWeek magazine. He graduated from Strathclyde University with a degree in psychology in 1996 and has always been fascinated by the gap between the way the market works in theory and the way it works in practice, and by how our deep-rooted instincts work against our best interests as investors.

He started out in journalism by writing articles about the specific business challenges facing family firms. In 2003, he took a job on the finance desk of Teletext, where he spent two years covering the markets and breaking financial news.

His work has been published in Families in Business, Shares magazine, Spear's Magazine, The Sunday Times, and The Spectator among others. He has also appeared as an expert commentator on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, BBC Radio Scotland, Newsnight, Daily Politics and Bloomberg. His first book, on contrarian investing, The Sceptical Investor, was released in March 2019. You can follow John on Twitter at @john_stepek.