Bulls hoped Yellen would deliver some dovish rhetoric but she didn’t say much overall.

Pundits struggled to offer something concrete regarding what Yellen had to say this day but could only offer the most diplomatic comments.

Finally, as stocks rallied modestly, early observers could only suggest what she hinted was interest rates would only rise “gradually”, if at all frankly. So that’s what passed for bullish news.

Yellen has another day of testimony before the senate. Given that, she’ll return to her focus groups at the Fed ascertaining what she might say next to push stocks higher. Her client/owners, the primary dealers (appx. 20 large banks), need to be encouraged.

By day’s end traders threw in the towel on the rally, at least for this day, and closed many of market sectors lower. Again, crude oil led markets lower along with materials and other commodities. Gold was higher and the dollar declined overall the Japanese yen rallied. Germany’s Deutsche Bank (DB) shares rallied near 10% on hopes a share buyback will come to fruition.

Market sectors moving higher included: Volatility (VIX), Healthcare (XLV), REITs (IYR), Homebuilders (ITB), Europe (VGK), Italy (EWI), Spain (EWP), Ireland (EIRL), Belgium (EWK), China (FXI), China Small Caps (HAO), Russia (RSX), Brazil (EWZ), Gold (GLD), Gold Stocks (GDX), Yen (FXY) and Treasury Bonds (TLT)

Market sectors moving lower included: Financials (XLF), Banks (KBE), Regional Banks (KRE), Energy (XLE), Industrials (XLI), Materials (XLB), MLPs (AMLP), Japan (EWJ),Hedged Japan (DXJ) India (EPI), Canada (EWC), India (EPI), Crude Oil (USO), Natural Gas (UNG) and so forth.

Below is the heat map from Finviz reflecting those ETF market sectors moving higher (green) and falling (red). Dependent on the day (green) may mean leveraged inverse or leveraged short (red).

Volume was still elevated and breadth per the WSJ was mixed.

Chart Of The Day

Was this just more wasted buying power Wednesday? It looks like it.

Before putting the week in a bust category let’s see how Janet is able to communicate dovishness to an unconvinced audience of investors. She and her focus group will be keeping the lights on at 33 Liberty until late as they craft a new message for senators.

Let’s see what happens.