Does anybody know what The Federal Open Market Committee does?

Anybody know why the market tanked today?

• I was away from the computer and TV all day today and wasn't able to follow the market. I come back and find out it had one of the largest drops of the year. Does anyone know why?

• Answer:

  Because of QE and gov't intervention, people have gotten used to the market going up every day, with only miniscule declines. Today, we finally got a decline; actually for the past five days in a row. This is healthy, and to be expected. The markets move in two directions, not just one. Yesterday was a bigger decline from the Non-Farm Payrolls report. Why? Because the markets got overbought and the 1370 level on the S&P was broken to the downside after four straight days of declines, because Operation Twist is winding down, because Spanish bond yields are rising and making investors skittish again over the Europe debt debacle. Spain and Portugal are two huge problems that dwarf Greece, which still isn't resolved after two years of empty promises that things will be fixed. In reality, there is no fix and nobody knows what to do about it. It is unrealistic to expect the market to go up every day, except in an artificially supported market (this is abnormal). It is a fact that governments cannot support the markets forever, or provide liquidity endlessly. The debt bubble will blow eventually, maybe not until after the presidential election, but then we will experience reality for a change.