The US Federal Reserve is about to rein in its money-printing – what does that mean for markets?

America’s central bank is talking surprisingly tough about tightening monetary policy. And it’s not the only one. John Stepek looks at what it all means.

Jerome Powell
Jerome Powell: from relatively dovish to quite hawkish in a short space of time
(Image credit: © US Federal Reserve)

Quick reminder, before we begin this morning: on 20 October, I’m hosting a webinar with Roland Arnold, manager of the BlackRock Smaller Companies investment trust. We’ll be talking about his views on the outlook for Britain’s smaller companies against the current backdrop of supply chain disruption and economic re-opening.

Don’t miss it (particularly if you’re a fan of small cap investing) – register for the webinar now. It’s free, and it’ll also enable you to catch up later even if you can’t watch it on the day.

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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.