It was a good week to be out of U.S. stocks as broad market indexes here gave up ground. That was in marked contrast to major markets around the world, which posted solid rises. After American stocks smoked foreign equities last year, this was a rare week of role reversal.

In sympathy with overseas equities, the largest U.S. companies—which tend to get a good chunk of their sales from international sources—did better. Small-company stocks, typically more domestically focused, fell sharply. Among them, technology and biotech did especially poorly.

Don’t mistake this for the return of the “risk off” trade, since even the MSCI Emerging Markets index—a beaten-down but riskier set of stocks—rose more than 3% last week. World equities, not including the U.S., were up 1.8%; German stocks rose nearly 3%, Japan was up 1.5%.

On these shores, the Standard & Poor’s 500 index dropped nine points to 1857.62. The Nasdaq Composite index lost 121 points, or 2.8%, to 4155.76. The Russell 2000 small-company index dropped 42 points, or 3.5%, to 1151.81. Only the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained, up 0.1%, 20 points, to 16,323.06.

With the quarter about to end, the S&P 500 is essentially flat, a far cry from the 10% rise in the same year-ago period. The bond market continues to confound. Though many have expected interest rates to rise since the Fed announced the tapering in mid-December, bond prices are higher and rates lower. The long end of the Treasury yield curve has flattened a little bit, suggesting bond investors don’t see much in the way of U.S. economic growth. Maybe that’s why some have put their money to work overseas.  (Barrons Online).

One bad day of Fed-induced fretting about interest rates didn’t spoil the whole week, and by Friday the broad market had closed up 1.4%. Fading from view—at least for now—is the ratcheting up of sanctions and rancor between the West and Russia over the illegal absorption of Crimea.

Comments from the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and chair Janet Yellen on Wednesday suggested the Federal Reserve might raise its funds rate earlier than expected and shook up both stocks and bonds temporarily.

Despite that, on the week the Dow Jones Industrial Average still rose 237 points or 1.5% to 16,302.77. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 25 point to 1866.52. On Friday the S&P reached a new intraday high of 1883.97 before fading. The Nasdaq Composite index added 31 points, or 0.7%, to 4276.79.

In a policy statement Wednesday, the FOMC hiked guidance for the federal funds rate to 1% at the end of 2015 and 2.25% at 2016’s end, compared to the previous 0.75% to 1.75%, respectively; it’s currently 0-0.25%. The Fed repeated that the funds rate will remain near zero for a “considerable time” after its bond-buying program ends. However, at the press conference afterwards, Yellen was asked to clarify the timing and said it “probably means something on the order of around six months.”

She shocked the market by putting a number on it—six months, notes Frederic Dickson, chief investment strategist at D.A. Davidson. Investors are still mulling whether that was just a rookie mistake or perhaps an inadvertent disclosure of FOMC thinking. Investors know rates are going up, and probably in 2015, yet the subject will likely remain a trip wire for market volatility in coming months (Barrons Online).