Quick Quiz: Fed meeting days provide an ideal opportunity for investors to: a) catch up on TiVo; b) clean the paperwork from their desks; c) play nine holes; d) meet their paramours for brunch; e) any or all of the above; f) none of the above. If you selected ‘e’ – any or all of the above -- then you’re probably a seasoned Fed-watcher. Which is to say, you have the good sense to be anywhere but in front of a monitor when the central bank issues its monthly press release.

We had long suspected that the announcement itself is cobbled together by a clerk chosen by lot and armed with a dozen stock phrases, but yesterday’s unprecedented “incident” convinced us of this beyond a doubt.  For reasons still unknown, the day’s first announcement concerning a 25-basis-point increase in administered rates that had been universally expected did not contain the obligatory disclaimer. “Longer-term inflation expectations remain well contained.”

We can only imagine the consternation this must have caused in the world’s bourses and trading rooms. It were as though Beria or Khrushchev had failed to appear in the reviewing stand on May Day, or a Miss America contestant had neglected in an interview to express her desire to see the world at peace. Fortunately the oversight – assuming that’s all it was – was corrected shortly thereafter with an addendum, allowing the stock market to conclude its latest bout of induced labor with a satisfied grunt.