Stocks going Dow-n, fall 3.5% this week

It’s getting quite exciting on Wall Street.

On Jan. 20 at 7:47 p.m., the Wall Street Journal reported the Federal Reserve was ready to throttle back, again, on its pernicious Quantitative Easing program.

The Fed’s policy-making committee, according to the report, is ready when it meets Jan. 28 and 29, to cut its monthly bond purchases to a mere $65 billion, from an already pared $75 billion.

This obviously isn’t sitting well with the brats on Wall Street who, told they are going to get fewer treats, are throwing a tantrum.

Since the report, the Dow Jones industrial average fell almost 580 points, or 3.5 percent. It’s down in each of the four trading days since the report — the worst week for the markets in over a year.

With traders and others on the Street acting out so much, I sometimes think all you need to do is add some naked models and some lines of cocaine and Scorcese can start shooting “The Wolf of Wall Street” sequel tomorrow.

To be fair, concern about the Fed isn’t the only thing weighing on Wall Street.

The strength of emerging markets is also an issue.

Take China’s economy as it shows signs of slowing and — worse — the Beijing government, believe it or not, acting more responsible than Washington by trying to stop its financial bubbles.

And Argentina just devalued its currency. And then Turkey did. And Ukraine.

And, of course, there are the things I’ve been telling you about for months: Corporate profits and, especially, revenue growth aren’t great.

According to numbers I got from Thomson Reuters a few days ago, 64 percent of S&P 500 companies that have already reported fourth-quarter profits have beaten estimates. Twenty-six percent have missed. That’s about normal.

So, why the worry? First, because those ratios were only as good as they were because companies lowered expectations considerably in the last few weeks.

This sort of stuff has been occurring for months — but Wall Street had $85 billion a month of QE treats to keep it happy.

What will save the market now? Will the Fed forget about the notion of tapering next week? Will the New York Federal Reserve Bank, which acts fairly independent of the Fed in Washington, have its Wall Street minions rescue the market through purchases of stock futures contracts? Or will a bunch of prominent, well-heeled Wall Street firms take matters into their own hands and protect the markets for their own and everyone’s sake?

See, I told you, it’s very exciting .