The biggest news yesterday was not that the Fed once again chickened out and left the federal funds rates untouched at zero. I could have told you that ahead of time. And guess what – I actually did on several occasions. No, real big shocker yesterday was some very carefully worded mention of negative interest rates. Say what? The sheer fact that these three words were uttered by Mrs. Yellen during her address speaks bounds about the growing fear deep inside the bowels of 33 Liberty St.

Who of us would have thought a year ago that we would be entertaining the thought of NIRP instead of raising interest rates perhaps for the second or third time by now? And that [...]

Today will arguably be the most anticipated Forex trading event of the year. It has been nine years since the last time the Fed rose interest rates and today’s FOMC meeting is the first of which there is a reasonable expectation of a hike by 25 basis points. You hear a lot of people talk about ‘the Fed raising interest rates’ but very few people really understand the actual process involved.

In a nutshell the FOMC regularly meets(I think every quarter) to decide the Federal Funds Rate, which is the interest rate at which depository institutions lend balances held at the Federal Reserve to other depository institutions overnight. They announce their decision [...]

Wednesday near the close of the U.S. session I really thought the ole’ Yeller had us all by the balls. If there has ever been an opportunity to squeeze the bears into oblivion then this had to be it. In yesterday’s musings Scott confirmed my notion that the series of lower lows and lower highs was still intact (barely) and that the bearish case was on the edge of extinction but still had a small chance of resuming. The odds were pretty minuscule IMO and early yesterday I kept checking the tape waiting for the invariable second shoe to drop.

But then suddenly something very curious happened:

In the last 20 minutes, someone has placed/canceled a 666 contract [...]