FGC BOLSA - FGC FINANCIAL MARKETS INFO

August 29, 2011 Dissecting Bernanke’s Speech In This Week’s Brief • Economic Report Card • Maria’s Most Popular • Poll: Will Unemployment Improve? Even amidst earthquakes and hurricanes, all investors could focus on last week was Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke’s speech at the Kansas City Fed conference in Jackson Hole. At last year's meeting, Bernanke readied the market for QE2. There are a lot of mixed feelings on Wall Street about whether a QE3 would be good for the economy and markets or not, but most people agreed that Bernanke had to let people know the Fed isn't walking away from the current economic challenges. Despite an initial drop right after his speech started at 10:00 ET Friday morning, the rest of the day’s action seems to indicate the market was at least comfortable with what it heard. Bernanke announced that the Fed’s next scheduled meeting in September will be expanded from one day

August 15, 2011 Interpreting the Fed In This Week’s Brief • Calm After the Storm? • Maria’s Most Popular • Poll: How Did You Play the Market Volatility? The volatility of the past two weeks in stocks, bonds and commodities is once again testament to feeling on the Street that there is little long-term commitment to stocks. That makes it a traders' market, not an investors’ market, and I hear from investors and business leaders that a lack of leadership from Washington is one of the main reasons for that. From many I talked to recently, one of the few saving graces was Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s announcement last week that the Fed will not consider raising rates until 2013. The statement had two implications: The Fed anticipates that the economy will be weak for the next 18 months. Someone finally made a clear statement about the economy. Perhaps the thing money managers dis

Last-Minute Debt Deal In This Week’s Brief • A Telling Week • Maria’s Most Popular • Poll: Would You Sign the Debt Deal? We’ve been talking for weeks now about how most of Wall Street has been complaining that until Washington comes up with a real plan for handling the deficit, there will be little long-term commitment in the markets. This has continued to play out while the fight over the debt ceiling and budget deficit went from Kabuki theater to the cold reality of threatening to wipe out the U.S.’s AAA bond rating. There are very few people in Washington much less anywhere else that expected this battle to continue up to the bitter end. And yet, it took a weekend of last-minute negotiations to reach a solution. Congress will finally vote to raise the country’s debt ceiling and avoid default. The deal announced by President Obama Sunday evening calls for a reduction in projected spending by as much as $2.4 trillion over the next deca