A couple weeks back, I opined that the next big problem for the stock market might revolve around global central bankers changing their monetary policy tune on a coordinated basis. The idea was simple. Stocks have enjoyed the benefits of capital creation via global QE programs since the crisis ended in early 2009. The key has been that when banks print money, the cash must go somewhere. And the bottom line is that a fair amount of the freshly minted QE capital consistently found its way into the U.S. stock and bond market.

The worry is that the majority of the world’s central bankers (save Japan, of course) looked to be ready to reverse course. Instead of creating capital, the plan now is for banks to begin to “normalize” their balance sheets. In English, this means the banks plan on selling trillions of dollars of the bonds and funky securities they accumulated to help keep the global banking system afloat over the last eight years.

The thinking is that although no central banker in their right mind would intentionally overwhelm or surprise the markets, a globally coordinated plan to sell bonds would become a massive headwind for the bond market. And the end result is that rates would be expected to rise – maybe a lot. Especially if the inflation that the central bankers have been striving for begins to materialize – or perhaps starts to run hot. Or if all those macro hedgies decide to front-run the Fed by doing some selling of their own.

While this outcome may sound a lot like the plan the bankers have been hatching for some time now, the problem is that the global economy was assumed to be strong when the bankers began to sell. And the big fear has been that the US Fed, the BoE, the ECB, etc., would “miss” on this element and wind up inducing economic weakness – maybe even a recession – in the process.

Recall that last month, investors had begun to worry that central banks around the world were actually turning hawkish. If one connected the dots, it appeared that this might even be a coordinated effort. For example, a string of Fed officials publicly stated they they would be in favor of hiking rates at a faster pace than currently projected by the “dot plot.” In addition, Bank of England officials openly called for an increase in interest rates. And then Super Mario (aka ECB President Mario Draghi) suggested that his bank might need to scale back its monthly bond-buying program. Oh, and the Bank of Canada joined the fray by hiking rates for the first time in seven years.