Uncertainty in the face of Fed meeting

Financial Sentiment Tracker, January 1 - June 19, 2013

June 20, 2013. New York – Media and analyst sentiment moving into yesterday´s Federal Reserve meeting was deeply uncertain, despite improvements in the media´s portrayal of monetary policy´s impact on the U.S. financial markets, according to new research from Media Tenor International.

“Media coverage and quoted analysts sentiment regarding major asset classes has been drifting towards neutral for several weeks as analysts avoided making predictions ahead of Thursday´s Fed meeting,” says Racheline Maltese, a researcher at Media Tenor. “Analysts arguably anticipated the lack of clarity the Fed provided yesterday, and the ambiguity in the media is likely to continue as analysts remain in the dark on which way and when the Fed is going to move on quantitative easing.”

Some frustration with the Fed was evident in U.S. media as coverage tone for the policy-makers flattened out, even as tone on monetary policy continued to improve.

“Analysts are more positive on U.S. based-investment than they´ve been in some time, and the impact of U.S. policy on investment overall has been trending upwards. There´s an air of cautious optimism on the Fed getting it right, but without a clear message, many analysts remain wary of making strong statements on what the markets are likely to do next,” Maltese notes.

“While possibly an unintended consequence of the Fed´s vague policy remarks, the caution analysts are showing regarding prognosticating may suggest some lessons learned from the extreme and ever-changing scenarios presented during the financial crisis. That said, a long-term stagnation in media quotation of analyst opinion may also result in market stagnation,” Maltese adds.