Today's rate decision warning: predicting the Fed is hazardous to your wealth

Predicting the Fed's rate decision today is one of the easier forecasts that I will ever make. I predict that the Fed will leave rates unchanged and that the inflation bias will remain the same. That was not very difficult. I am simply repeating what Chairman Ben Bernanke has been telling us for the last several months.

Why, then, do many on Wall Street insist that the Fed change its position to match their forecasts? It does not make sense. The Fed is aware of inflationary pressures and the negative impact of the housing slowdown. However, it does not feel the need to act now or to change its bias.

The numbers support the Fed position. The economy is slowing but right now only enough to slow inflation. As I have mentioned, election-cycle politics support taking no action unless absolutely necessary. In the long term, the Wall Street predictions may be right. However, as John Keynes once said, we are all dead in the long run. People who shorted Internet stocks in 1998 learned this the hard way.

My prediction for today is simply more of the same. Remember to Follow the Fed! It is much easier and less stressful way to make money.

Doug Roberts is the Founder and Chief Investment Strategist for FollowtheFed.com, an independent research firm focusing on investment strategies using the Federal Reserve's impact on the stock prices. He previously held executive positions at Morgan Stanley Group and Sanford C. Bernstein & Co