The minutes of the Federal Reserve Open Market Committee (FOMC) were released this afternoon and judging by the 130 point plunge that followed, some investors were disappointed with the Fed.

AP reported that investors were hoping for stronger signs that the Fed would cut its Fed Funds rate when it next meets on September 18th. Although the Fed fretted about the slowing housing market and tightening credit markets, which would lead one to believe that the Fed might be willing to cut rates, investors were expecting a more definite statement. However, the Fed continued to identify inflation as the biggest risk for the economy -- implying that it would hold rates steady to keep inflation from getting further out of control.

While it would be nice to think that something so simple drives stock prices up and down, it's really much simpler and much more difficult to explain their movement. The reasons that big investors buy and sell stocks are simply not disclosed to investors. So the media just takes a quote from a market expert without really knowing what caused prices to move.

Meanwhile, the average Dow stock lost 2.1% of its value today. And the reason might be that the Fed is not eager to bail out those who borrowed too much money and now can't pay it back.

Peter Cohan is President of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.