There's no need to pretend like there's not an 800-pound gorilla in the room. Federal Reserve Chairperson Janet Yellen "spoke" today, via the minutes from the last FOMC meeting. The hot topic headed into the release of the FOMC's report was whether or not the Fed was in more of a hurry or less of a hurry to raise interest rates compared to expectations from a few weeks ago. Everything else was just ancillary details. The timing - and language describing the timing - was the only thing that mattered, and traders stood ready to act on the announcement. We'll slice and dice the details of the Fed decision below. The first item we need to take care of today is looking at the impact of the Fed's outlook on the stock market. Crazy Market Well, we have to give credit where it's due - the guys over at the Elite Opportunity newsletter just nailed it today, by explaining in perfect terms exactly how insane the current market environment is. John Monroe said in today's EO newsletter: "...if this isn't an either or scenario right now, then I don't know what is. And, it all comes with a key options expiration this Friday. Pretty efficient right? Well, like I said in my opening paragraph today, the markets are "usually" pretty efficient, but I'm not so sure this is the case right now. Here's why... Oil has breached its six year low. Gold isn't showing any signs of long-term strength yet. The dollar has finally decided to take a short break from its parabolic thrusting move higher recently. Yet, stocks haven't decided to stage any sort of significant rally yet, and the bond markets are suggesting money continues to rotate over into what most consider to be safer instruments." Sounds about right. You know what though? The Elite Opportunity's commentary is also one of the few resources I know I can rely on every day to keep me ahead of the curve when it comes to handicapping the stock market. John went on to respond to his own observation today, making a lot of sense out of something (the market) that doesn't make much sense at this juncture. Honestly, a great deal of the insights and observations I bring to you every day come from the Elite Opportunity newsletter (though I only bring you a fraction of what full EO members get). On that note, while there's little doubt investors were waiting to hear what the Fed had to say before making their move this week, there's also little doubt as to what it means for the market. The news jolted the indices above some major ceilings, and as such jump-started a rally effort. The chart of the S&P 500 tells the tale. The 20-day moving average line was cleared, and the VIX broke under a key floor at 14.5. I still think you should be cautious and picky with any new entries, and no, I don't think the rally is going to last very long before we run right back into valuation problems. The bulls have the wind at their back for the time being though, and that's good enough for now. Anyway, it occurred to me today as I was writing this newsletter...I often talk about how good John Monroe and the Elite Opportunity team are at making market calls, yet I don't talk much about how good they are at picking stocks. This may have been an injustice to you, so let me make a point of doing showing you something today. I did a little number crunching this afternoon, and figured out the EO has issued 34 trades since October of last year, and cumulatively those picks have gained 437%. That's an average gain of about 12.8% per trade, which for those of you that follow marketwide trading stats will know is just off the charts in terms of performance. Some of those trades are still open, so the numbers could change a little by the time they're closed out. But, it doesn't matter. The numbers as they stand more than demonstrate the kind of benefit an EO subscription could provide to your portfolio! If you're thinking this is where I tell you to become an Elite Opportunity member, you're wrong. I don't think you should become a member.... yet. I think the very first thing you should do is sign up for the free stock picks the EO is offering to see just how good they are. Make them earn your business. Give 'em a test drive. I'm pretty sure you'll want to become a full member once you get a taste of what John Monroe and his team are doing, but I'll let you decide for yourself. Just go here, or cut and paste this link: https://www.smallcapnetwork.com/pages/SCNEOL/v1/ Fed Decision Day And the decision was? You probably already know - the Fed is less-than-thrilled with the current condition of the economy, but is still willing to raise interest rates. Go figure. More important at this point, the word "patient" was conspicuously missing from the Fed's statement regarding the likely timing of any rate hike. So why the rally in the wake of the news? After all, a rate hike is the last thing investors want to see? It's a sign that the market still doesn't believe interest rates are going to rise in the middle of this year, as the Federal Reserve also made it clear it's a little more dovish than some were expecting thanks to tepid inflation and a merely-mediocre job market. I know this, because bond interest rates plunged following the news, as you can see on the chart of bonds, the dollar, and yields. It is what is. Yields on 30-year Treasuries fell to about 2.54%, and bond prices rose accordingly. Clearly a few people were planning on higher rates in early February, but they changed their minds by early March. Today's news and response sealed the deal. I don't know how long these new trends will last, but I'd be willing to guess a few weeks. It's not the bonds or yields I want to take a closer look at though. It's the chart in the middle, of the U.S. Dollar Index. Although they're not directly correlated, the greenback and interest rates are indirectly connected. More important today, the same opinions that sparked a pullback in interest rates also sparked a pullback for the U.S. dollar. It's a move that simply wasn't ready to happen in late-2014, mostly because traders were pretty sure a big rate hike was looming then regardless of what was going on elsewhere. The falling dollar now, today, implies the market doesn't think rates are going up very soon after all - or by much - even though the word "patient" is missing from the FOMC minutes. In fact, I get the feeling it's not so much the timing of a rate hike as it is the likely tepidness of any string of rate hikes that zapped the U.S. Dollar Index on Wednesday. A rate hike in June actually still seems likely, although futures say the first hike is apt to come in October. But, given the economic lethargy, the Fed is essentially saying interest rates aren't going to be catapulted higher whenever they move. Many of the dollar's recent bulls seem to have been counting on a major string of painful rate increases. SCN Elite Opportunity Free Alerts Get premium select stock picks via email and mobile text alerts from our SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity Team. It's 100% FREE! No strings attached and no credit card required. Click here to sign-up today! This is kind of a big deal, as it may well be the beginning of a pullback for the U.S. dollar. That's not a bad thing. In fact, it's a very good thing. I'd even go as far to say a weakening dollar may be a reason to expect more and better things from U.S. multinational companies than we're currently expecting... a discussion we had just a few days ago. I don't want to get any deeper into it now. I just wanted to plant a seed with you. We can talk more about the U.S. dollar and the ramifications of a falling dollar as the story develops. Oil Oil Everywhere Believe it or not, the interest rate decision wasn't the only thing going on today. The market was also digesting news of what can only be described as a stunning amount oil piling up in storage facilities all over the country. We're running out of places to put it. All told, the Energy Information Administration says we've now got 458 million barrels of oil tucked away all across the country... the highest total in 80 years. Take a look. Crazy, huh? While we all basically knew something like this could happen, I'll confess I'm surprised it got to this degree. Those who think oil is at or near a bottom (and that's not me anymore, now) will be quick to point out a lot of refineries are in shutdown and refurbishing mode right now, meaning oil that would normally be at refineries is now elsewhere. I get the premise. That doesn't explain the wild surge though. Refineries shut down about this time every year, and we've never seen anything like this. The whole thing becomes even more vexing knowing the total U.S. oil rig count is not only at multi-year lows, but dropping like a rock. Some of you may know Baker-Hughes keeps and publishes a tally of all the active/operating rigs in the United States every week. Last week's drop to 866 rigs marks the 14th straight week the rig count has dropped. We're now back to early-2011 levels. What's jaw-dropping is the speed of the plunge since late-December. It doesn't make a lot of sense, frankly. Our production capacity should have dried up quite a bit, but if it has, it clearly hasn't mattered yet. We've got more oil than we can handle right now, and crude stockpiles didn't start to soar out of control until the point in time when rig counts started to plunge. There IS a lag-time between extracting it and storing it, and may be measured in weeks. Even so, we should have seen some evidence of impact of lowered production by now. We haven't seen any. The "so what" is, we may be much further away from a true bottom in oil than first thought, even if stockpile levels start to subside (which I think will happen soon). These images are downright alarming. The irritating flipside is, a falling dollar may well be the beginning of higher oil prices. The problem with that is, higher-priced oil will make the oversupply problem worse rather than better. We'll have that discussion later on as well. Hey, don't forget - be sure to sign up for the Elite Opportunity's free stock pick alerts!