Stocks look set for a strong September finish

THE central bank sponsored punch bowl is overflowing again and could transport US stocks to record highs.

Stocks rose last week and are set up for a strong finish to the month and the year after the Federal Reserve and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) gave markets another serving of their intoxicating brew. For the Fed, this could be last orders.

The Standard & Poor's 500 finished the week at 2,164, only about one per cent from its all-time high.

The volatility in global stocks, commodities and bonds this year was largely based on the fear that central bankers were about to "take away the punch bowl" of low interest rates. Some bankers had warned for years that global stocks, bonds and entire economies were in a state of reckless inebriation because of the free availability of the "punch bowl" of low interest rates. The bears had said that the US Fed, the BOJ and the European Cen…