With so much propaganda surrounding the Fed’s decision to raise interest rates this week, a legendary short seller just warned it’s now “jokers wild” as the Fed is completely out of control.

By Bill Fleckenstein President Of Fleckenstein Capital
(King World News) – As longtime readers know, often when I am traveling the markets get wild, and last Friday was a good example of that. I think the huge break in the FANG stocks is most likely a meaningful development and it is an early-to-coincident sign that perhaps the market is finally exhausting itself…

Wait, Wait, Don’t Sell Me
I know I have felt that exhaustion could be developing a few other times and it turned out not to be the case. That said, having a wrong thesis is pretty common in this business, so the important thing is not to try to force positions because of a hunch, but rather see if the thesis plays out and is corroborated. To that end, the subsequent action this week hasn’t negated the possibility of exhaustion, but we haven’t really seen anything to make me feel like a serious decline is ready to begin just yet. On that topic, I encourage everyone to look at Mr. Skin’s post in Ask Fleck today because he did a brilliant job succinctly summarizing where we are from a psychological standpoint.

Fed Balance Sheet At a Tipping Point
The other “big” news while I was on the road was the FOMC meeting, but as usual it didn’t amount to much, other than the fact that the Fed has now put a tiny bit of meat on the bones of its alleged plans to unwind its balance sheet. Of course, those plans are completely conditional, and even the Wall Street Journal — which tends to buy the Fed’s party line — made it quite clear in a front-page article yesterday just now tenuous said plans look to be.

The WSJ noted that, “the moves Wednesday marked the latest test of the economy’s ability to stand on its own as the central bank dials back stimulus measures.” They also wrote that the supposed additional rate hike will occur only, “if the economy performs in line with the latest forecast” [emphasis added].

The reason I bring this up is because there seems to be so much concern on the part of folks involved in the gold complex that the Fed will carry out various forms of severe tightening policies. That is not the case. I have discussed this quite a lot, so I don’t want to waste readers’ time by repeating myself…..More Here