Stocks extended their losses again this week. On Wednesday, June 22, the Federal Reserve Bank released its latest interest rates policy statement (no change). Afterward the Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke held a press conference, followed by a Q&A period.
The financial media paid lots of attention to what Bernanke said. Our own Steve Hochberg -- editor of the Monday-Wednesday-Friday Short Term Update -- had this to say about Bernanke's press conference (excerpt):
Short Term Update for Wednesday, June 22, 2011; 5:15 PM, EDT:
"I think what the Fed is trying to say is that the economic 'recovery' has lost its upside momentum, but you didn't have to wait until today to try and decipher this seemingly impenetrable Fed-speak to realize this fact. ... In our May [Elliott Wave Financial Forecast], we published another 'key economic indicator' that we're quite sure the Fed has never looked at: the share price performance of a major help wanted advertiser [Monster] relative to U.S. Q-o-Q GDP.
"Long before today's Fed's statement, the market has been signaling that economic conditions are deteriorating rapidly. You can almost always read it first in The Elliott Wave Theorist or The Elliott Wave Financial Forecast and stay ahead of the trends that you will eventually read in the newspaper, or hear the Fed discuss. There are never absolutes when studying the human condition, only probabilities. But our experience has led us to conclude that observing actual behavior, as gauged minute by minute in the financial markets, is the far better and more successful way to forecast than reading a Fed statement."
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