After the long-awaited two-day meeting of the Federal Reserve finished yesterday night, the decisions made there affected the financial markets in various ways.
Perhaps the single most important thing we learned from this meeting was that the federal Reserve is fully prepared to start withdrawing from its stimulus measures put in place after the financial crisis of 2008, decrease its portfolio and increase interest rates starting December this year.
As a result of this decision the dollar was able to make new gains on the Japanese yen, as well as to drive the price of commodities such as gold down. The Bank of Japan predictably left its policy unchanged, welcoming the USD/JPY changes.
European stocks (STOXX, SX7P) also went up, as did American bonds. The euro softened and dropped a little bit against the stabilizing dollar to around $1.1880.
Commodity prices across the spectrum went down, since they are all sold in USD typically. These include gold, copper, nickel and other metals, as well as crude oil.
