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The Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Ben Bernanke testifies before the US House Financial Services Committee on July 13, 2011 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.KAREN BLEIER

The Dow Jones industrial average fell about 90 points in a split second at 10 a.m. (ET) on Friday after Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke delivered his remarks at Jackson Hole, Wyo., in a much-anticipated speech on what the Fed can do to revive the economic recovery.

In short: Not much. While Mr. Bernanke said that the central bank still has tools to stimulate the economy, he did not provide any details on what those tools might be or whether he would use them.

From Bloomberg News: "In addition to refining our forward guidance, the Federal Reserve has a range of tools that could be used to provide additional monetary stimulus," he said in prepared comments.

"Although important problems certainly exist, the growth fundamentals of the United States do not appear to have been permanently altered by the shocks of the past four years."

In other words, investors who had been hoping that the Fed would come to the rescue of the economy – and the stock market – with another round of quantitative easing, or QE3, are now sorely disappointed.

Ten minutes after the prepared comments were released, the Dow was down 201 points or 1.8 per cent, to 10,949.

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