Quote from Daal:
I actually I thought the biggest surprise of the day was uber hawkish. Bernanke says extended period means a couple meetings! I have never seen anything like that from anyone at the FOMC. Matter of fact Dudley said
Asked what "extended period" means, Dudley said he did "an informal poll of people" and "among my very informal set of people that I asked that question they said that 'extended' in their minds means at least six months."
Then one fomc minutes last year said extended period was not a timetable, now Bernanke claim it is and it means 90 days. I'm very surprised and I'm wondering if he didn't misspoke
Maybe this isn't a huge deal. Bernanke says extended period means there would be a couple meetings before tightening. This adds up to 135 days(45x2 then the 45 days waiting for the meeting where they will hike). So that's 4.5 months not that far off the 6 months people consider that to mean, he also said 'probably' so he is not sure