I had breakfast with a good friend this weekend. He runs a small hedge fund that actually managed to get through the financial crisis relatively unscathed thanks to shorting most of the big financial institutions before the Lehman debacle including a big short in Countrywide. My friend has also delivered great performance over the past half dozen years as he has been an unequivocal bull since the recession officially ended in June of 2009.

What was disconcerting about our conversation is my friend is getting bearish for the first time since the financial crisis. What’s worse is he confirmed some of my current feelings about the market. Our concerns are concentrated in three key areas and investors should keep an eye on these items in the months ahead as bad news from any of these areas could cause a market selloff.

The Federal Reserve and Interest Rates:

The credit markets have seen considerable turmoil over the past few weeks. The 10-year treasury yield has moved some 60 basis points since the end of January and hit a 2015 high of 2.28% last Wednesday before selling off a bit Friday. The volatility in the German 10 year Bund market has been even greater over the past few weeks. Remember it was the so-called “Taper Tantrum” in 2013 that caused the last major decline in the market.

More importantly, the market has lost an important driver of its six yearlong rally. The Federal Reserve finished its last “quantitative easing” program in October of last year and is no longer pumping the liquidity into the market that has been a significant tailwind for equities since early 2009. In addition, the Federal Reserve is off the “money printing” bandwagon while its brethren in Japan and Europe are still fully committed to their own easing programs. This has been a key driver of the strength of the U.S. dollar since last summer and is a key reason for no year-over-year earnings growth in the S&P 500 in the first quarter as well as a drop off in export sales.