Sunday, December 13, 2009

What do Tiger Woods and Ben Bernanke have in common?

They each have us guessing about the definition of their open-ended period for the timing of their next decision. The next decisions will be of great importance for everyone who follows these two market movers and shakers. Bloomberg has two articles about these two topics today. Here are a couple of snapshots from each.

Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Dec. 3 he doesn’t rule out using monetary policy to prevent unfounded increases in asset prices, though he said financial regulation is a better approach. Bernanke said this week the U.S. economy continues to face “formidable headwinds,” signaling the Fed will keep its benchmark interest rate near zero for an extended period.

“They need to be very early in executing their exit strategies,” Roach, a former Fed economist, told Bloomberg Television. “I take Mr. Bernanke at his word that he’s looking for an extended period of monetary accommodation, which, quite frankly, I find very worrisome in assessing the prospects of a next bubble and the next crisis.”

“We’ve obviously done golf tournaments without Tiger before,” Sean McManus, president of CBS Sports and News, told the New York Times. “We’ll adjust, but I guess a lot of it depends on what the definition of the word ‘indefinite’ is.”

Geoff Ogilvy, the 2006 U.S. Open champion, said at the Australian PGA Championship that all golfers had a stake in Woods’s story.

“If Tiger Woods indefinitely doesn’t play golf,” Ogilvy said, “that’s not good for us.”