There it is. As was widely anticipated, the Federal Reserve cranked up its target Fed funds rate by a quarter of a point. And, as we expected, investors sold stocks on the news. They had a little more reason to do so than we or anyone else was counting on though. It looks like the FOMC -- the same people who were terrified to even talk about raising rates a year ago -- are looking to put three more rate increases in place before the end of next year. The most the majority of experts were calling for was two. A reason to worry? We don't think so. It's apt to weigh on the minds of would-be bulls for a while, but they'll come around when they realize that even after three more rate bumps, interest rates will still be at the historically-low-end of their range. It (probably) shouldn't stifle the economy. The trick is just waiting for everyone else to figure that out. We'll slice and dice it below, but we've got a couple of news items we want to work our way through first. Two of our featured stocks had some interesting news today. In no particular order... If it seems like Nexus Gold (NXXGF, CVE:NXS) has been in the news an awful lot lately, you're not crazy - it has been. It's deserving of its time in the spotlight though. As a refresher, this is the junior gold miner we introduced to you back on November 23rd. Prior to our coverage it had a couple of interesting mining prospects - the Bouboulou Gold Concession, located in Burkina Faso, Africa, and the Walker Ridge Gold Project, located in the Jerritt Canyon/Independence Gold Trend in northeastern Nevada. That same day it added the Niangouela gold concession - also located in Burkina Faso - to its list of prospects. In retrospect, we should have paid closer to attention to Niangouela. By December 6th it had signed a firm deal for Niangouela, on December 8th it announced it had already contracted a driller to do the initial digging, and just today it announced that contractor already had equipment working at the site, digging for gold. That's probably the fastest purchase-to-plowing timeframe we've ever seen from any gold miner, small or large. It bodes well. At its current pace you have to wonder if they'll be shipping gold out by the truckload in just a matter of days. Geez. James Brumley puts it all in perspective. In any case, you have to respect how efficient and conscientious the management team for Nexus Gold is. All too often a miner will sit on a prospect and think about it for what seems like forever. Not Nexus though. If you've been watching NXXGF from the sidelines, mulling a buy, you may not want to wait any longer. Things are moving very fast. Our other big news came from Viva Entertainment Group (OTTV). As a reminder, Viva Entertainment Group is the name that's positioning to out-Netflix Netflix. By that, we just mean the company is assembling a very robust over-the-top television service that's going to make people wonder why they bother with Netflix. Whereas Netflix is an over-the-top television service, it's not a realistic replacement for cable. Viva's platform is a viable alternative to traditional cable television service, and it becomes a more potent player all the time. In fact, that's exactly what happened today. This morning, Viva Entertainment announced it had added FlixFling to its list of streaming services available through its over-the-top service. For those of you who know FlixFling, you'll know this is kind of a big deal. I don't know how FlixFling does it, but it's able to get access to some movies before Netflix or Hulu get them. With the service now on the Viva menu, Viva's product becomes even easier to sell. Matthew Briar has the whole story. As far as the market goes, well, this is what I was talking about yesterday when we told you we had a funny feeling the market was only buying the rumor so it could sell the news. Today's news was simply that 2017's rate hike plan is a little more "accelerated" than first thought. Gotta be honest though... we suspect the pullback was going to happen anyway. The market's just ready for some profit-taking. What's most interesting - and bearish - is despite the market's significant pullback, the VIX didn't surge. This is an indication that people weren't too surprised, nor do they disagree with the response. Said in more direct terms, the fact the VIX still has so much more room to keep rising is something that will work against stocks here rather than for them. Anyway, rates jumped today, but the 2017 interest rate outlook forced the U.S. dollar to jump even more. In fact, the dollar surged to a new multi-year high. The forecast: The Fed is now pricing in three rate hikes in 2017, based on the most recent "dot plot"... ... where it was only pricing in two rate hikes before this week's meeting. This plan caught a lot of people by surprise. We can't say we blame the Federal Reserve. Inflation is starting to become a little unwieldy, and years dovishness is about to come roaring back with a vengeance. We had to do it to keep the economy on life support, but with a business-friendly Trump about to take office at the same time the global economy finally found firm footing, the next couple of years could end up being hotter than many people realize. That rhetoric's been brewing for a while, but really hit home today. More important to all of you, now, the prospect of a string of rate hikes isn't a reason to worry, or bet against the market. Despite all the chatter that says otherwise, there's no conclusive evidence to suggest markets can't and won't rise when rates do, nor is there any evidence to suggest stocks won't fall even if rates move lower. How do we know? Because we looked. Here's what we saw. (Click on the chart to see the full-screen image.) Indeed, the lack of correlation is almost a little alarming. It can't be that surprising though. Remember, the reason the Fed raises rates is to cool inflation, but inflation only needs to be cooled when the economy is strong. The chart simply says there's a whole lot more to the story than interest rates. We'll look at those other things that do show a strong correlation with the bigger market tide before we worry about the rate picture. The other thing the chart shows (to me anyway) is just how low interest rates are, on a historical basis. Even if we do see three rate hikes next year, money is still going to be dirt cheap compared to historical rates. Of course, it may be a while before other investors accept that reality. We may well see a decent pullback in the near future. That's going to be a buying opportunity though. More on that when the time comes.