For the U.S. stock market, a close call to a break down in the relative period of order that has existed since the end of the first quarter of 2016:

And yet, the cause of yesterday's rally can only be considered to be little more than noise, because the market is also flashing a real warning sign that things are not as bright as they seemed just a little over a week ago.

The industries experiencing enough distress to lead firms to announce dividend cuts during the past week include the finance (5), non-mortgage-related real estate investment trusts (2), oil (2), mining (1), manufacturing (1), chemicals (1), marketing (1), shipping (1), technology (1) and entertainment (1). Combined, the last six trading days have seen at least 16 firms announce dividend cuts, where a relatively healthy U.S. economy would see no more than 10 such announcements during the course of an entire calendar month.

And that's where we're at going into Election Day 2016! We'll have to wait to see what kind of noisy fireworks might erupt on Wednesday!...