...the primary catalyst for today’s surge in stocks was Mario Draghi’s speech in NY attempt to cover up the ECB’s latest policy error as virtually every sellside analyst called Draghi’s ‘disappointing” decision to jawbone expectations from the ECB to the stratosphere only to fall woefully short and lead to a 500 point plunge in the DAX and the biggest surge in the EURUSD since the announcement of QE1.But nothing was a bigger catalyst in setting the market’s euphoric mood than the following exchange between Mervyn King, in which the former BOE chief asked “was today’s speech deliberately designed to try offset some of the reaction yesterday?” to which Draghi had a response that shocked every central bank watcher in its brutal honesty that all that matters to the ECB at this point is the market:
“Not really… well, of course.”
And there it is: at the end of the day, all modern monetary policy devolves to is offsetting a “negative market reaction”, not even so much about pushing the EUR lower, which as we showed earlier, barely budged.
Bottom line, it was, is, and always will be about manipulating markets higher and the former Goldman Sachs banker no longer even bother not admitting it!
