Financial credit & counterparty risk - has consistently been an issue; but more recently it has come to the fore yet-again. We had called the Fed's rate-hike several things: a) belated and reactive after they had already painted-themselves into a corner; b) based upon global macro issues in a way that required the Fed to pretend it was a response to economic recovery pace increases (which were already being reversed for a few months by then); hence we thought they 'would' hike rates following the already-stated tapering; but that; d) it would backfire on the Fed because the markets would roil; and as they had portrayed the hike as based on domestic considerations; they'd get a large part of the blame; deserved or not. 

All of that occurred; validating our pre-hike view that they'd be dammed if they did, and dammed if they didn't' assessment; again because they waited maybe as much as two years too long to do it; and then moved in a reactive way. Also recall that credit markets reversed within two sessions of the move; also early indications of the move having essentially no impact (nil on mortgages as noted early on; never understood why media talked of higher rates for home buyers, as the Fed only impacted the Funds rate, and while we did look for erosion to real estate prices, we don't see higher conventional home loan rates). 

Historical evidence of what happens when the Fed is seen as misreading U.S. economic strength (to wit: even if global they presented the economic recovery as gaining traction while it was actually loosing some) is limited. However some exists as to what happens if it's done at economic stall speeds, and of course the most infamous were 1936-'37 hikes, in the midst of the Great Depression. 

I realize circumstances are never identical; though I made the comparison of a Fed here waiting too long, then hiking amid the Controlled Depression as I've called this entire financial-engineering experiment project (even Fed Bernanke, it's architect, recognized the QE extents were pioneering); thus not without a degree of risk as he tried to 'thread the needle' to a broader-based recovery. Preceding that historic 1936-'37 move; the Fed's balance sheet jumped from 5% to 20% of GDP, trying to offset the deflationary Depression environment.

It begs the question as to why the Fed, The Treasury, or Wall Street, generally as we know, did not anticipate the outcome (which was already markets under distribution as we've known for months); which we believe would 'backfire'. Just consider this similar assessment (with a twist when you see who stated it):

"For a considerable time there was no understanding of what had happened. Then it became clear. The spurt in activity from October forward, had been dominated by inventory accumulation. This was especially the case in automobiles; where, because of fears of strikes, supplies of new cars had been built up. It was the same in steel and textiles - two other industries with strong CIO unions."

J Piermont Morgan (1936) 

In recent months and especially weeks before the more-dramatic break we had anticipated once the Fall lows came-out (the 'Vacuum' before 'No Man's Land') and the ensuing threat to the August lows; we looked at an inventory liquidation cycle because of lower sales and channel-stuffing; inventory-to-sales ratios did confirm this; wholesale prices chimed-in; and the resulting 'all-time-high' spread became evident. I stated our view of a trend showing it unfolding since last July.

Incidentally, besides believing that financial-engineering created illusions that a broad recovery was taking place, we proved that expansive money supplies of types that primarily create circuitous ways for institutions to lift financial assets, do not necessarily prevent overall consumer and other prices from falling, or in a sense augment private sector growth. In fact private sector growth is helped a bit more 'now', because the expansive policies are being wound-down; pushing banks to actually lend a bit more aggressively; but now few want to borrow or toexpand CapEx, given the shaky economic prospects at least in early 2016.

Conclusion: if all events from 1929 to 1936 taught economists that absence of rising prices did not prove an impending further crisis wasn't pending, then the events of 2014-'15 (like 1936-'37) should readily teach analysts that attempts to tighten policy in the ongoing economic malaise, not only ends the 'wealth-effect' (pandering to Wall Street?) iteration; but sees the markets catch-down with the rest of the commodity markets (not to mention how that changed as contended for a long time due to China ending it's pattern of hoarding and transition efforts to transform their society from a primarily export-driven one, which takes years) and accordingly would see (initial stages somewhat behind as assessed along the way of the projected 'distribution under cover of a firm 2015 Dow and S&P) a considerable portion of financial market asset wealth... basically wiped-out.