Here's an important point that's inspired by a fewtweets from our friend Josh Brown.
In announcing the beginning of the reduction of Quantitative Easing — which Bernanke just did— he just slapped in the face all of the doomers, gloomers, and policy bears who said the Fed could never reduce the pace of QE and that we were permanently trapped in a world of Fed stimulus.
But the economy is getting better, interest rates AREN'T exploding to the upside, and the stock market is more than handling this well (stocks are up nicely). Basically Bernanke just executed that a bunch of people said was totally impossible.
The Fed's actions aren't over yet. Quantitative Easing is an ongoing process, and then at some point the Fed will have to raise rates. But the process of exiting the crisis strategy is proceeding apace.