there, down 15 points, almost 1%. wrapping up the first day of the new month, let s get straight to today s action. joining me is nathan bacharach, and greg ip, cnbc contributor from the economist. gentleman, good to have you on the program. let s first parse through what ben bernanke said today, greg ip. two lines, the fiscal policy is restraining economic growth struck me. and number two, the committee is prepared to increase or reduce the pace of its purchases to maintain appropriate policy accommodation, as the outlook for the labor market or inflation changes. what s your take on the fed today? so, i think the second part where they explicitly stated that they could up or down on quantitative easing was the innovation in this week s statement. and the reason it s interesting is that if you go back to the meeting in march, after the meeting, ben bernanke in his press conference explicitly raised the possibility of going up or down on qe. but all the chatter that we hear