A look at the current market leaders would usually reveal to the astute investor the probably direction of future Fed policy on rate decisions. The clear market leaders (aside from AAPL) are retail, bank, and housing stocks. The historic pattern is to begin buying these stocks (and sell smokestack, metal and mineral, and gold stocks) when the fed is just starting to ease. Since the Fed has been maintaining a ZIRP for 2 years, the timing is a bit off, but the principle should still apply about future policy decision. At this point in a normal cycle, where the Fed has stayed neutral on rates and GDP exits a trough, we would hold the retail, bank, and housing, begin to buy paper and chemical stocks, and look to sell medicine cabinet stocks. We can see that LTD, EL, COST, and TJX (retail), JPM, GS, BAC, and KRE (bank), and SHW, TPX, and WHR (housing) are all behaving according to the historical cyclical model. IP, DD, and FMC are also starting to break out, again keeping with the model. Given all these observations, there is enough evidence to conclude that rates are about to rise, whether or not the Fed wishes them to. Maybe the old cyclical model is not so much a model of where the Fed will take rates, but where rates will go on their own.