(Image Source: Bloomberg)

BY JIM FLINK

You're watching multisource business video news analysis from Newsy. 

Like a roller-coaster inside a Halloween fun house.
That’s one way to describe the markets right after the Fed issued it’s latest briefing.
Down 206, up 429 -- the steep climbs and calamitous drops are enough to make investors motion-sick.
Here’s the Wall Street Journal.

“U.S. stocks zigzagged in volatile trading Tuesday afternoon as investors digested the Federal Reserve's pledge to keep interest rates near zero for at least two more years, through mid-2013.  While the Fed didn't announce a bold step of buying more bonds that some in the markets were hoping for, the move... may help keep borrowing rates low and drive investors into riskier assets, like stocks.”

Or gold. It surged. Fox Business had the immediate fallout -- and it was swift.

“Gold has been moving to new highs, of course expected to see the dollar weakening, silver dropping back, crude dropping on concerns about the economy both here and in Europe as well.”

Treasury yields plunged to uncharted waters.
On MSNBC one analyst says, by locking in near zero rates for two years -- the Fed has given up on saving the economy.

“I think the Fed should have declared a war on gold.  Instead,what they’re saying basically is put all your investment dollars in gold because we’re not going to pay any interest at all.”

So no QE3 -- no stablization of the greenback.  A third downgrade in the forecast.
Forbes’ Augustino Fontavecchia says you can read volumes in the Fed’s actions.

“It appears that QE has failed. An army can’t win a battle if their general thinks he has already lost, and it seems like this is what’s happening at the Federal Reserve.  With the Fed almost throwing in the towel, it seems like the ball is in Congress’ court, where political gridlock and imbecility from both parties have put the U.S. on the brink of default...”

Bank of Montreal chief economist Sherry Cooper tells The Globe and Mail -- with all the current problems rocking the world economy -- there is major dissent building within the Fed.

“Even after the downward revisions to GDP, the weak Q2 growth rate, the rise in unemployment, the continued housing depression, the fiscal tightening and the recent sharp selloff in the stock market, three out of 10 voting members on the FOMC (Federal Open Market Committee) wanted no change in the ‘extended period’ language. They should give their heads a shake.”

Much is being made of those three dissenting votes.
Some analysts likened it to mutiny.
But an analyst on Bloomberg says that kind of dissent, in this kind of economic firestorm, is welcomed.

“Chairman Bernanke has seemed a little afraid of dissent in the past. And I think the fact that he and the other members are willing to have such an open fight says that there’s a group now that is willing to fight for more expansionary policy.”

Transcript by Newsy.