Markets that trade in New York and Chicago found themselves not so much down as they were downbeat in tone, searching for some direction other than Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen’s hawkish rate comments yesterday before Congress.

“It could be appropriate” to act at the Fed’s final policy-making meeting of the year in mid December, Fed Chairwoman Janet Yellen told the House Financial Services Committee.

If you look closely at the manufacturing data released today by the U.S. Department of Commerce, you’ll quickly see that the worst of the industrial slump is over or almost over.