The Federal Reserve shocked market participants in September with its decision to refrain from tapering quantitative easing, as many felt that the central bank had signaled the move at its June meeting. Fed chairman Ben Bernanke sparked a sharp rise in long-term interest rates at the June press conference by suggesting that tapering could happen later in the year. The September decision raised questions among observers over whether talking about tapering ended up eventually precluding tapering, because the rise in long-term interest rates sparked by the signal weighed on the economy such that the Fed then felt it ... (full story)