Bernanke steps into brave new world

The conclusion of next week's two-day FOMC

meeting on Wednesday will mark the start of a

brave new world, with Chairman Ben Bernanke

scheduled to host the Fed's first post-meeting press

conference. We also expect the FOMC to

complete its $600bn of Treasury purchases as

scheduled by the end of June. After that, we see

the Fed on hold for some considerable time. We

suspect the Fed would be very reluctant to

compound the impact of any fiscal contraction this

year and next by tightening monetary policy too.