On Tuesday, Lieutenant General Sergey Rudskoy, chief of the main operations department of the Russian General Staff, gave reporters an update on Moscow’s efforts to squeeze ISIS by dismantling the group’s illicit oil trade from the air. 

“The intensity of air strikes at Islamic State and other terrorist targets has been increased, Rudskoy told reporters, adding that The Kremlin’s warplanes have destroyed six oil production facilities and seven truck convoys in the past three days alone. 

When last we checked in with billionaire Sam Zell, the real estate mogul was busy offloading some $5.4 billion in apartments from Equity Residential’s portfolio. The 23,000 units were sold to Barry Sternlicht’s Starwood Capital and as we noted at the time, Zell has traditionally had a very keen nose about such things as "market peaks": the 74 years old is credited with calling the top of the real-estate market in 2007, when he sold another one of his companies, Equity Office Properties Trust, to Blackstone for $23 billion.

While Yellen still speaks in her historic "first rate hike in years" press conference, the sellside has already shared its kneejerk reaction to the Fed's announcement, and as Citi notes, "It’s calm on the floor considering the first rate hike in years. More attention on WTI crude, which remains 4% lower to 35.80 after DOE inventory build."

More from Citi:

Our Treasury desk notes real money flow in front end with better buying around the 2-year point as its yield briefly popped above 1%. Little seen in the back end.

 

Perhaps even more important than the actual rate hike announcement, the one statement the market was particularly focused on was the Fed's "implementation note", which lays out the Fed's thought process on how it will actually raise rates in order to maintain the Fed Funds in the 0.25%-0.50% range.

Focusing on the negative aspects of his campaign has blinded people to the good -- and I don't mean good like, oh, the Democrat can beat this guy. I mean good like it's good that some of these issues are getting aired.