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The biggest event overnight came from Europe, where Draghi managed to once again jawbone the Euro lower by ober 50 pips when he told European lawmakers in a prepared testimony that downside economic risks are "clearly visible," repeating his October press conference statement, adding that the ECB will reexamine degree of accommodation in December as "inflation dynamics have somewhat weakened." And the statement that crushed the Euro: "If we were to conclude that our medium-term price stability objective is at risk, we would act by using all the instruments available within our mandate to ensure that an appropriate degree of monetary accommodation is maintained." I.e., another "whatever it takes" moment.

Prepping has not only gone mainstream, it's infected even the billionaire culture as referenced recently on a ZH article:

Bloomberg's global commodities index is testing fresh 16 year lows but this is often excused on the basis that it includes crude oil weakness - which will mean-revert higher any day now. Perhaps the bigger, even louder warning signal is directly from the basest of base industrial metals... which are now down 50% from their 2011 "reflate the world" highs.

For the third day in a row, China dominated the overnight newsflow with the latest industrial output data, which printed at 5.6% missing expectations of a 5.8% increase, and was tied with March for the lowest print since late 2008.

The ongoing failure of China to achieve any stabilization in its economy, after already cutting interest rates six times in the past year, and the prospect of a U.S. interest rate hike in December, had made markets increasingly jittery and worried which is not only why the S&P 500 Index had its biggest drop in a month, but thanks to the soaring dollar emerging market stocks are falling for a fourth day - led by China - bringing their decline in that period to almost 4 percent, and the global stock index down for a 5th consecutive day.

Are we in for another nuclear standoff with the Kremlin?

The failure of the Fed’s policies of massive money creation, corporate bailouts, and quantitative easing to produce economic growth is a sign that the fiat money system’s day of reckoning is near. The only way to prevent the monetary system’s inevitable crash from causing a major economic crisis is the restoration of a free-market monetary policy.

"Historically, the statistical or mathematical properties of the financial markets have shifted as the economic recovery nears full employment (i.e., at about the 5% unemployment rate the contemporary recovery has reached). Traditionally, at this point in the recovery, the stock market suffers more frequent declines, bond yields rise more often, average annualized returns from both asset classes are lower, diversification benefits tend to diminish, and recession risk is enhanced."

"Given that we are clearly moving into a higher default environment we believe that equity investors may be inclined not to reward stocks that have large buyback programs. And if this is the case, corporate managers will have a diminished incentive to borrow money to finance buybacks."

But who is the governments' strongest ally in their 'war on cash'?

It must be somewhat ironic for the U.S. progressive moment that a day after Obama officially slammed the seal shut on Transcanada's Keystone XL pipeline after a seven year "review" (and days after the company itself withdrew its application, something which the admin ignored just so it could have the final say on the mater), moments ago an oil tanker train derailed north of Alma, Wisconsin along the Mississippi River 80 miles south of Minneapolis, with at least 32 cars off the tracks.

Today we got yet another confirmation that China's July announcement on its gold holdings merely broke the seal of accumulation when the PBOC reported that its total gold holdings as of October 31 had risen to a record $63.3 billion, up $2.1 billion from $61.2 billion at the end of September, and an increase of 14 tons based on the month-end LBMA gold fix price. This represents the fifth consecutive month in a row in which China has added to its gold.

The most entertaining overnight story has to do with the latest farcical development in the Chinese "market" when just after open, it was reported that PBOC Governor Zhou said a trading link with Shenzhen will start this year which promptly sent all Chinese brokerages soaring, and the Shanghai Composite jumped over 3%. And then, out of the blue, the PBOC said the undated comments were actually as of May. As Bloomberg put it, "China’s central bank unintentionally sparked a surge in the nation’s stock market by publishing five-month-old comments from governor Zhou Xiaochuan that said a link between exchanges in Shenzhen and Hong Kong would start in 2015."

Almost all serious analysts see a Terminal problem developing - "We will go from deflation to hyperinflation without seeing inflation." But hyperinflation is a political phenomenon. It is caused by those same authorities the masses think they can trust. When they are threatened, they will protect themselves by printing money on a scale we haven’t seen since the War Between the States (consumer prices in Richmond, Virginia, had risen 6,700% by the end of the war).

So far today's trading session has been a repeat of what happened overnight on Monday, when following a weak start on even more weak Chinese data, US equities soared on the first trading day of the month continuing their blistering surge since that dreadful September payrolls report, which as we showed was mostly catalyzed by a near record bout of short's being squeezed and covering, which accelerated just as the S&P broke the 2100 level.