The Treasury has finally released the details on their Public Private Investment Program (PPIP) aimed at taking toxic assets off of bank balance sheets. Investors are cheering this announcement as they have been eagerly awaiting these details since the program was first announced 2 months ago.

The Federal Reserve has previously promised to use all available tools to help the U.S. economy recover and they have followed through with that promise. The U.S. central bank has officially cranked up the printing presses and will be flooding the financial markets with money.

Federal Reserve monetary policy decisions have become increasingly less important after the central bank took rates interest down to a record low of 0.25 percent. With no further room to ease, tomorrow’s rate announcement could be anti-climatic, which is a big departure from the currency market’s previous obsession with the FOMC rate decisions because of the volatility that it can have on the U.S. dollar.

Who will be next to take interest rates to zero? Of the eight major central banks, three have already taken interest rates as low as they can.

The US dollar traded lower today as safe haven demand subsided. New fiscal stimulus has been announced in Australia and Japan leading US investors to hope that similar help is around the corner. The full Senate is expected to vote on the $885 billion stimulus package this week and the prospect of a swift approval is having a big impact on the currency market. Politics is overshadowing economics and in that same vein, any delays in getting the money into the hands of Americans could derail the greenback.

Although the Federal Reserve did not change interest rates this afternoon, the FOMC announcement led to a significant amount of volatility in the currency market. In our FOMC Instant Insight, we talked about how the dollar rallied because the Fed said that they “may” and not “will” start buying US Treasuries. The market was looking for something more radical such as inflation targeting or a bold announcement that they will immediately start buying long term Treasuries in size, which would have been dollar bearish. In the grand scheme of things, the Federal Reserve delivered nothing new today. So with that in mind, what should we expect now that the FOMC meeting is behind us?

The Federal Reserve has officially run out of room to cut interest rates. For the first time since August 2007, they left interest rates unchanged at a target range of 0 to 0.25 percent. The dollar rallied because the Fed did the minimum of what was needed to pacify the market, which was to say that they could purchases Treasuries but are not going to do so right now. Currency traders were looking for something more radical such as inflation targeting or a bold announcement that they start buying long term Treasuries in size - which would have been dollar bearish. Interest rates could remain at current levels for the next six months as the central bank focuses on credit easing. The Federal Reserve was pessimistic about the outlook for the US economy and said that inflation could continue to remain weak in the coming quarters.

The US dollar continues to rise, but the rally is tempering. After sharp losses this past week, the Euro, Japanese Yen and Australian dollar are beginning to stabilize against the greenback. US equities have been in the red throughout the day, which is why most currencies remained negative despite sharp intraday reversals. Over the next week, the US dollar faces 3 big threats that all traders and investors should be aware of – a bad bank plan, central bank intervention and economic data: