When the head of the Fed speaks, people tend to listen more than they do to the secondary (non-voting) members. And today, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen delivered a crystal clear message.

Of course, there are many in the trading community that wish the side-talkers in the Fed, especially the ones who are FOMC non-voters, would walk the plank because they are pushing and pulling the financial world.

Tomorrow’s speech is the ideal opportunity for Chairwoman Yellen to put the world straight as to what she, if not the core of the FOMC, is thinking.

James Bullard, had of the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank and a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee felt a compulsion to comment on the decisions that he agreed with just last week.

Poor earnings, plus sagging crude oil, and an extraordinary loss in a patent case in the biotech sector, weighed on equities prices today.

Stock prices, however, are trying to bounce back off their lows of the day, looking for a late afternoon session, which seems itself to be swooning.

One would have justifiably thought that the barbaric attacks in Brussels would have spun out a more extreme reaction in financial markets.

Oil retuned to higher prices today during the U.S. trading session, permitting American equities to take advantage of the situation.

West Texas Intermediate crude was up over 1.00% while Brent was up just under 1.00%  at the close of regular trading. In after hours, prices seem to be holding.

The big story of the trading day is a decline in crude oil that did not create a correlative decline in U.S. equities prices. In the last few days we have seen oil and equities trade in tandem but the equities charged off in their own direction.

Oil switched partners and joined gold in dipping in price. That is a more traditional pairing.

U.S. equities and crude oil today heartily approved of the Federal Reserve’s inaction on rates yesterday.

As anticipated, the U.S. Federal Reserve stood pat on interest rate increases. This impacted all markets today, particularly crude oil and gold.

Equities were up solidly, though less spectacularly than other sharply accelerating investor areas.

At one point today oil was down over 3.25% and was dragging equities down again. In early afternoon, West Texas Intermediate and Brent North Sea started to recover.

But traders should have known that oil was overbought in the $40.00 range and its rise has gone too far, too fast.