The continuing malaise in the US jobs market lifted hopes that the Fed may need to re-consult their policy tool-kit, with renewed speculation that QE3 would be back on the table. The difficulty for the Fed Chairman in terms of implementing further QE is numerous. The success of previous rounds of QE has been mixed – they certainly lifted both commodity and asset prices, and thereby possibly thwarted a dangerous lurch into deflation, but failed to materially impact on growth, weighed heavily on the dollar, and alarmed foreign creditors. An additional challenge for the Fed Chairman is that some of his fellow policy ... (full story)