The Fed did what was expected and, as Ayn Rand would have it, Atlas shrugged. We have certainly had enough time to prepare both in the physical investing world and the emotional investing world. The federal funds rate rose from zero to 0.25%.

Fed jitters, or maybe it’s just a prelude to a quiet holiday season that will give analysts and investors lots of time to ponder what a small rate hike means? It will also give us lots of leisure time to ask how we (meaning the Fed) arrived at the decision to press the button on a rate liftoff.

The CPI figures were released today and gave some added encouragement to Fed hawks.

Despite a bit of U.S. dollar weakness in the face of raging volatility, gold could not muster enough strength to rise. Rather it fell sharply, down over $9.00. Silver fell almost 1.5% on the day, but platinum and palladium rallied.

(As of 3:30 in New York, the dollar and euro are even for the day.)

You know those old movies where the bad guys “rub out” someone then toss the bound body onto the street and it ends with a sickening plop?

We’re thinking that right now crude oil, which is down 10% on the week, is that body. Plop, plop, crash, shriek, wham, bam. Crude’s reeling downward is affecting everything else in the marketplace, but it is not exactly the prime mover.

Crude oil fell again today, losing nearly 1.25% as of 3:30 in New York. One would have thought that would have brought on even more declines in equities, but the opposite was true.

If you were to have had a long, long nap yesterday afternoon and just now woke up and began monitoring today’s financial news, you would be forgiven for thinking it was still Tuesday.

Well, natural gas was up today.

All major stock indices were down from Asia, to Europe to New York. The NASDAQ seemed as if it were going to make it into the green zone as a result of positive developments in biotech issues but gravity proved to be too much for it. As of 3:30, the NASDAQ is also in negative territory.

Brent North Sea and U.S. crude futures went into free fall today by as much as 6% before recovering a small bit of their losses. The drop seems to have been in belated reaction to OPEC’s inability at a policy meeting on Friday to conclude an agreement to lower production and thereby push prices higher, or at least prevent a further decline.

The big, big surprise today was the precious metals complex, which exploded and caused brains to freeze around the world. Two questions arose: “Why” and “For how long?”

Palladium was the biggest mover, soaring to the upside by 6.5%. Platinum was close on its heels, moving 4.00% to the upside. Silver and gold rose 3.40% and 2.25% respectively.

All hell broke loose as the European Central Bank lowered interest rates but not as much as anticipated. Additionally, head of the ECB Mario Draghi essentially said he would pull out all the stops in order to stimulate the continent’s lackluster economic performance.