Taper Tantrum
The 2013 market panic, with bond yields spiking, after the Fed hinted it would slow its bond-buying programme.
In plain English
The 2013 market panic, with bond yields spiking, after the Fed hinted it would slow its bond-buying programme.
The taper tantrum refers to May–June 2013, when Fed chair Ben Bernanke suggested the Fed might soon start "tapering", slowing the pace of its QE bond purchases. He did not say stop, just slow down. Markets threw a fit anyway.
US yields jumped sharply, and money rushed out of emerging markets, hammering currencies like the Indian rupee, Brazilian real and Turkish lira. It taught central banks a lasting lesson: signal changes slowly and clearly, because markets hate surprises.
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