Enjoy it while it lasts

Ben Bernanke hasn’t had it easy lately. So the Governor of the Federal Reserve should remember Wednesday March 18. For one brief day, he seemed to have regained the upper hand over frightened markets. It didn’t last – for good reasons. Investors were shocked by the announcement that the Fed would buy $300bn of US government debt, with the prospect of much more to come. For most, the shock was a pleasant one. Treasury yields fell sharply, stocks rose and the spreads on credit-default swaps narro...