Trevor Greetham, Director of Asset Allocation at Fidelity Worldwide Investment: “Once again the Fed has upstaged the ECB with powerful and open ended easing program aimed right at the core of the problem - housing finance. Ben Bernanke is the world expert on what the Fed should have done to get out of the Great Depression and he is following the playbook to the line. Ease aggressively, don't reverse course and keep the easing going well into the recovery.
“Today's actions support our long-standing overweight of US equities versus Europe and of global property. As for overall market levels, we may see a period of consolidation as those who bought the well-flagged rumour sell the news. We're hopeful this ease will help trigger a new economic upswing but these things don't happen overnight. Soft economic data could create some good buying opportunities in the next few months.”