THE ROAD AHEAD

Investors might not have to wait past Wednesday's Fed FOMC meeting and the Swiss rate decision Thursday for some volatility.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Fed Chair Janet Yellen when she was vice chair at the Fed was "an unabashed advocate of easy money who pressed colleagues to embrace her view."

Leopards aren't reputed to change their spots, but some apparently do. And Yellen seems to be one of them.

As the head honcho, per the Journal, she now is taking a "more restrained consensus" view like her former boss Ben Bernanke. One of the things investors will be looking for is any change in the long-standing Fed phrase "considerable time." It's etched in investor psyches and the Fed knows it.

It's been three years since the S&P 500 witnessed a 10% correction. That's a party few want to walk away from. Unification is a lot like new stuff; it hardly ever goes down easily.

So the most skillful tap dancing appears in order. Any riff here among members could cause a much bigger riff in the market. Though short-lived, most investors remember the first time bond tapering made its way into investors' lexicon.

So now the wait is only a day away.

Having said that, there is another meme making the rounds. One could call it the absence of any meaningful alternatives. With low interest rates in Europe and Japan looking as if they'll be hanging around a while money continues to flow into U.S. bonds and equities.

Fear of rising interest rates and a stronger dollar have sent investors away from smaller caps stocks into safer havens like utilities and consumer necessities.

Given those low rates in the EU and Japan, for stateside investors that means buying larger cap domestic companies rather than multinationals that don't face currency risks. For EU investors buying higher yielding U.S. bonds it's just the opposite.

For certain, few things have been more anticipated and discussed than the eventual upswing in interest rates. But jittery investors are as jittery investors do. And any unclear road ahead will most likely make them even more jittery.
t. man hatter