Markets for the most part took a breather from taking their daily beating today. They were led higher by opportunistic buying, short covering, hopeful players betting the slide is over and, when trading opened in New York, reliance on a robust private jobs-creation number by ADP. Oil and gold were the exceptions, heading lower.

Let’s open with the overproduction of crude oil and use that as a factotum for all commodities. The world is not producing too little but too much of almost everything. (The exception might be pharmaceuticals, health services and housing materials.) Thus, we have low or declining prices in most raw materials.

It’s easy to think of today’s scorching-hot meltdown in equities, precious metals, oil and a majority of agricultural commodities, bond yields and the U.S. dollar as cyclical, corrective or somehow coincidental.

It has been by any reckoning a very erratic week in most markets. Equities, precious metals, bond yields, and oil were whipped here and there, up and down after last week’s FOMC vote.

Later this afternoon, Janet Yellen must fulfill her role as “Soother-in-Chief” of the world economy. Can she accomplish that without compromising her role as “Truth-Teller-In-Chief?” It will be a tightrope walk.

Since the middle end of August, lethargy seems to have haunted almost every market you can name. (In general, many industrial and agricultural commodities are down considerably, however.) But let’s look at some major areas to get a feel for what’s happening overall.

We’d like to begin with Volkswagen’s suicidal attempt to skirt pollution sensors and controls on their automobiles, essentially creating a fraud that at some point may lead to criminal charges. That drove VW’s stock down almost 17% on the day and hammered other automotive stocks.

Investors’ eyes and ears are turning toward the actual functioning of markets, even as we hear continual proclamations from various Federal Reserve members regarding a rate liftoff.

Crude oil is a good example of how the focus has been re-oriented.

In case we didn’t have enough of the truth-or-consequences scenario that has been catapulted into markets since the Federal Reserve decided yesterday to stand pat on rates, we now have the right wing in the U.S. Congress again troubling its own house. (And everyone’s house with it.)

The statement issued by the Federal Open Market Committee touched upon a small handful of reasons it voted to hold rates steady. We highlight some of them below in bold.