French President Hollande declared eerily early in the ‘game’ he was sure ISIS is behind the tragedy, and ISIS statements seem to confirm that conclusion. But what is ISIS? And where does it come from? It’s no longer really credible to entirely ignore the role of the west, including France, in the origins of the ‘movement’, if it can be called that. From Al Queda to ISIS, and scores of groups and factions in between and beyond, there is at least some kind of link to western military action in the middle East. And that link goes back quite a few years, if not decades.

"My guess is that we will have negative rates in Norway before there will be any talk of QE"...

It's not just tourism and retail sales that might swoon--global sentiment might switch decisively from "risk-on" to "risk-off" with far-reaching consequences, a reversal that would quickly cascade through every asset class and every market--not just in the short-term, but in the long term.

"Clearly we wish that we had had the presence of mind to have been aggressively net short of equities, but we did not, nor are we that lucky. We shall, however, look upon any intra-day rally in the market as a point at which to become modestly shorter of the market."

For the 4th month in a row, and 9th month of the last 10, Empire Fed Manufacturing survey missed expectations printing -10.74 (against expectations of -6.34). This is the 4th monthly contraction - the longest streak of contraction outside of recession. Future outlook (hope) dropped to recent lows as New Orders have now contracted for 7 straight months, and number of employees shrinks once again as the average workweek collapsed to the lowest sicne July 2011.

The most interesting aspect of the deal is that instead of the traditional transaction premium, Marriott will buy Starwood in a deal where shareholders will receive 0.92 Marriott Class A shares and $2 in cash for each Starwood share, the companies said on Monday. This works out to $72.08 per share for Starwood, a discount of about 4 percent to the stock's Friday close. In other words, an aggressive take under for a company that was trading as high as $86/share, suggesting the purchase price is about 16% below the 52 week highs.

As so often happens in these upside down days, was the best thing that could happen to the market, because another economic slowdown means the BOJ, even without sellers of JGBs, will have no choice but to expand its "stimulus" program (the same one that led Japan to its current predicament of course) and buy up if not government bonds, then corporate bonds, more ETFs (of which it already own 50%) and ultimately stocks. Because there is nothing better for the richest asset owners than total economic collapse.