Today's FOMC announcement officially pronounced the end of the Fed's quantitative easing programs. All in all, the announcement was pretty standard fare. Of course, analysts are arguing whether the announcement was hawkish or dovish, or whether various phrases used in the announcement mean interest rates will rise in April or July of next year. It reminds me of a group of medieval soothsayers studying tea leaf residues.

The markets dropped quite a bit in the first few minutes after the announcement, but then stabilized. Apparently traders have decided the market can stand on its own. SPX lost $3 to close at $1982 and RUT also lost $3, closing at $1146. Trading volume was up a touch with 2.2 billion shares of the S&P 500 stocks trading. Trading on the NYSE increased 5% and trading volume increased 13% on NASDAQ.

Plot SPX with its Bollinger bands. It is amazing how quickly it has traveled across the band from the lower edge nearly to the upper edge in just a few days.

We won't know for sure how the market has reacted to the FOMC announcement until tomorrow. Everyone will be studying those tea leaves this evening.