Saying QE is over is a bit like saying a flood is over when the water, up to your chin, stops rising.

The Fed, which as expected pulled the trigger on the final taper on Wednesday, still controls a balance sheet it plans to keep steady at $4.5 trillion. And more to the point, though the statement included a bit of upbeat talk about employment, we are now looking at forward guidance of a wait of a “considerable time” before interest rates might actually rise.

There can be little doubt that the US economy is now receiving very intensive support from monetary policy, both through the balance sheet, which remains massive, and interest rates, which remain pinned near the zero lower bound.

If we take the end of the taper as predetermined, and think of how shocking it would have been had they not done this, then really all we are dealing with here is changes in tone and emphasis from the Fed. To be sure, the statement is slightly more upbeat, both in terms of the labour market and by minimising fear that inflation will remain below the 2 per cent target.

There really isn’t all that much to go on here, and we are going to remain in this situation conceivably for many months, trading off of changes in forward guidance.

Remember, forward guidance is a promise, but the Janet Yellen who makes the promise is not the same Janet Yellen who will be called on to deliver on it. Besides higher volatility, one worry is that forward guidance loses its efficacy the longer it gets used.

I think it is fair to expect turbulence under these circumstances, almost regardless of what we see by way of economic data, good or bad. The market is going to have a hard time digesting the news of the next six months and should see more sharp moves.

That brings us to Alan Greenspan, who somehow had the temerity to weigh in on Fed Day with a warning about the troubled times to come. Hearing from Greenspan on Fed Day, the man who bears as much responsibility as anyone for our current plight, is about as welcome as a Public Service Announcement from the Pied Piper on Mother’s Day.

Monetary policy in all its various forms only works a bit during these sorts of balance sheet recessions. A rate rise may come next June, or in September or later but the volatility will probably arrive well before the actual hike.