A Great Year

One week ago rumors circulated that the Federal Reserve would announce the cessation of its five-year easy money, aka quantitative easing, program. The financial markets fell.

The feared cutback turned out to be not very severe; bond-buying will "taper" from $85 billion per month to $75 billion. The markets resumed their climb, some to new highs. Last week's short-term budget deal and today's Fed announcement brought a measure of certainty to government fiscal and monetary policy, respectively.

It's refreshing to see grown-up behavior (finally) in evidence at the Congress and Federal Reserve. One only hopes that in the New Year we will see it in the Executive Branch, which lurches to and fro trying to put out fires of its own making.

YTD chart updated to 12/23/2013: if you had money in the market, it's been a great year.