First it was Texas. Then five other states - Louisiana, Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, and Michigan - followed in refusing to admit any Syrian refugees. It has since became an avalanche, and at last check, at least 27 states - represented by more than half the nation's governors - say they oppose letting Syrian refugees into their states.

The Trade-Weighted US Dollar has risen almost 19% over the past 18 months - the fastest pace of increase on record - and is now at its highest level since 2003. As we noted previously, this is not unequivocally good for American corporate profits... and if you believe The Fed's Stan Fischer - the worst effects of this soaring exchange rate are yet to come... Most of the impact of exchange rate moves come after that first year. So we’re only just getting into the business end of the impact of the dollar’s strength on the US economy. And the Fed are about to hike?

Count us incredulous at this point (and we're sure we aren't the only ones), but it looks as there has been yet another explosion at a Chinese chemical facility, this time in Liaoning.

"Today we close our last remaining Top Trade recommendation to be short EUR/$ via a 1.00 – 0.95 put spread (initially struck at 1.20-1.15 with spot at 1.25), which expires out of the money incurring a loss of premium."

Despite plunges in new and pending home sales (current) and lumber prices (forward-looking), Homebuilder Sentiment surged in October to its highest in over 10 years. November appears to be ushering in some sense of reality check. Having revised up October to 65 (from 64), November saw sentiment drop to 62 - the first drop since May. The Southern and Midwest regions saw overall drops in sentiment as The West rose to new cycle highs. Both current and future sales expectations dropped notably but - despite all the blather about weather - prospective buyer traffic rose to its highest since October 2005!

"Apparently terrorist attacks are supportive of stocks… apparently! We have been wrong in times past, and we have been wrong badly before, but we cannot recall every having been as wrong as we were yesterday for we were certain that terrorism is a bad thing for equity investment... We were clearly and obviously wrong, and when wrong the only possible action to take is to get less wrong; to cover that which had been done and to retreat to the sidelines." - Dennis Gartman

Following September's 0.2% MoM drop, October's Industrial Production dropped a further 0.2% (missing expectations of a 0.1% rise by a mile). This is the 9th MoM drop in the 10 months of this year. Utilities (-2.5%) and Mining (-1.5%) were big drivers, as year-over-year, IP rose just 0.34% - the weakest growth since January 2010 - is flashing recessionary signals loud and clear.