Good Wednesday afternoon everybody. Well, as you certainly know by now, Janet Yellen and her friends at the Federal Reserve opted to leave interest rates unchanged. They did, however, acknowledge there was a little more possibility of a September rate hike than there had been. It was all still fairly open-ended, but you get the sense she and the other voting members of the FOMC were a little surprised that Brexit and lackluster earnings season thus far (they made the decision back in June, so not all that's happened since then is factored in) wasn't more of a problem than it's been. Broadly speaking though, the Fed's minutes didn't really tells us much more than we already knew. That didn't prevent traders from acting surprised though. Yields fell quite a bit, creeping back towards long-term lows. Bonds responded in kind with a respectable gain. The news simply rekindled trends that had been in place for a while, as you can see on the chart below. The oddball here is the U.S. dollar. Though it's not always clear if the dog wags the tail or the tail wags the dog, the dollar and interest rates generally move together. They're not right now. The dollar was down a little today, but the dollar has been and is still trending higher since late-April. And it's not just a Brexit thing either. I've not yet decided if this is a bad scenario is a good one. A strong U.S. dollar keeps inflation in check, and therefore keeps the heat off the Fed to raise interest rates. A strong U.S. dollar, however, also hurts multinational companies, and outright kills U.S. commodity and energy companies, as it crimps the value of things like gold and oil. The dollar and interest rates have been strangely disconnected of late, and today's co-dip doesn't exactly sync them up again. Take a look at the crude oil price chart below. We've added some Fibonacci lines to it just to give us some context, since crude prices are so far removed from any moving average lines they won't even have a chance to play a role in any reversal from here. As you'll see, not only is oil still falling, that selloff is accelerating. Where's it going to end? That depends. Like we said, we added Fibonacci retracement lines for a reason. The reason is, we know Fib lines make for key inflection points when there are no others around. Think of them as the "enough is enough" price level. We're not quite there yet, but we're close. Here's the thing.... while crude oil prices might find a floor at the $40.50 level where the 61.8% Fibonacci retracement line is waiting, that doesn't mean they'll bounce right back into the uptrend that got started in February. Take another look at the crude oil chart. Notice how all the key moving average lines are pointed lower and/or have already made bearish crossunders. That makes them tougher to bounce back above IF crude oil even gets a chance to test them again. It looks like the $45-ish area (where the 38.2% Fibonacci line currently lies) could become a real battleground, as the 20-day and 200-day moving average lines will be there soon. If they collectively present a problem and repel any rebound effort, then the energy sector is right back where it was near the end of last year and beginning of this year. If oil has to test $40.50 a second time, I'm not so sure it would survive. A lot of traders would be spooked if the selling got a second wind. It's a problem too, as the implosion of the energy sector was starting to have a real ripple effect on the rest of the economy. So what can be done to stave off oil's bigger-picture implosion? A weaker dollar, for one, which would more or less require lower interest rates. Problem is, rates are already about as low as they can be, and the Fed is talking about raising them sooner or later. That won't help drag the greenback lower. It's an annoying catch-22. Don't worry too much though. The economy always wiggles its way out of these tight spots, finding the happy mediums. My guess is, the dollar is going to ease back into a downtrend sooner or later, and rates will remain tame... until the dollar falls enough to at least catch up with low rates. Hopefully by the time that happens the broad economy will be stable enough that people aren't getting stressed out about these nuances, which only matter when people think they should matter. That could be a long wait though, with the stock market held in check the whole time (just like it's been held in check since the middle of last year). It certainly makes it tough to be an investor in the meantime, with nothing going on worth trading. There's a solution though, and the Black Ops Trader team has found it. We've said it before but it merits repeating now... go to where the action is. If stocks aren't moving, something else is. That's just the nature of the beast. Gold, bonds, oil, stocks, or whatever, something is always in motion. That movement may be bearish, but movement is movement. Just ask the Black Ops Trader subscribers who are now up 26% on their VelocityShares 3X Inverse Crude ETN (DWTI), which they only got into on July 19th. That's 26% in six trading days, taking advantage of the oil meltdown the BOT saw coming before it became clear it was going to happen. For perspective, the S&P 500 has gained about 0.3% over the course of the past six trading days. Which would you rather have? Don't get the wrong idea. Sometimes stocks are the big movers and oil is stagnant. Other times gold and bonds are the best trades. The Black Ops Trader service looks at all those instruments all the time though, pinpointing the best opportunities at any given time. If your portfolio could use a few more double-digit winners per year, I can't recommend the Black Ops Trader enough.