The dollar is higher because the rest of the world is falling into a mire save China. This is not a catalyst for plowing more assets into the stock market, however, it is a catalyst for moving to US dollar denominated assets. Of course, given the Federal Reserve's history of printing money at every opportunity, don't plan on parking it there too long.

The strong US recovery argument is quickly melting like it has the last 5 years. That means assets in the US are way overvalued already thanks to government and central bank action. When they do this the economy tends to fall very hard when it stops working which it is according to a slew of studies showing money creation is hardly stirring the market at all.

Agreed, student debt is the first hole in bankruptcy laws protecting people. The reason they were put there was government over involvement in the student loan market which shouldn't have happened in the first place. Rather than making things better for students their actions blocked the youngest from debt relief while fueling education fraud like Trump's business school, as well as financing a mass runup in education cost much like government intervention ran up housing prices and healthcare. Enough of the helping out people by intervening in the market. They have already made life worse for citizens by pumping up home prices, medical costs, and education while insulating banks and others from the financial mess and lumping the cost onto the public. I wouldn't be surprised if the next downturn will block housing and medical debt from bankruptcy as well. Americans must do something about this before the economy becomes as grim as Greece. There is no way out from the perma-bear socialism we are imposing on people besides taking a massive financial blow disseminating it.

Declan Fallon, thanks. Semis are a great way to see cyclical turn in technology, and little can be done by the Federal Reserve and government to stop it from being revealed. It's certainly worth watching.

The positive to this is that hopefully countries will give up on QE and unsound, anti-capitalistic central bank printing. Likewise, governments must learn the hard way that out of control public spending has a price just like out of control households. They should be happy for brief reprieves, however, priming the pump throughout a 6 year cycle can no longer be called emergency action, it is now just supporting a illegitimate banking economy that can't sustain itself and enriches itself at the cost of the free market without providing ample goods or services. The rest of the world has taken notice and are embarking on the same failed experiment which has a limited duration before markets collapse. If it becomes any more dire it will threaten capitalism itself because market signaling will be absolutely ruined along with trust in the government and central bank.

LOL don't worry, Obama will cave on military spending to get Republican deficit support to continue his massive public sector overxpenditures which strangles the private sector. Barring that he will, blame the Republicans for a economic cyclical downturn which is way overdue and will be worse thanks to the pump priming and government over expenditure years after the last downturn. Thanks Scott for keeping up on this. Indeed government obligations already far exceed its ability to pay without subjugating the public to more taxation.

It's great to see some resolution to metals market manipulation. I still wonder why metals are more open to manipulation than other commodities. I understand gold and silver due to government buying which in itself makes the market questionable. But copper, platinum, etc? Really?

Oracle without Ellison, much like Microsoft without Gates, Apple without Jobs, etc. Although their hype might be over rated their exits always create stock price havoc, uncertainty, and slower growth. Given Oracle's overprice and messed up accounting system, I'd have trouble believing any of its hype and certainly wouldn't depend on their systems for any critical corporate function. Of course, Oracle would argue accounting is just one aspect of their solution. Sadly, it is not the hardest making me believe Oracle itself is losing control of the Frankenstein it has created by absorbing all types of companies and losing the minds that developed the technology. Ellison is right to leave. I don't see much progress for Oracle for a long time and it's claim to embrace cloud solutions is a joke. That said, they do make reams of cash off Salesforce simply because sales people are too stupid to know they are getting ripped off. They will have a much harder time replicating this model.

Sadly this will do nothing to prevent hackers etc. from breaking into your account or stealing your identity. In effect it may make it easier since your identity gets taken and converted into the chip or biometric you select. People should be much more careful with their data and these solutions, although easier are not the nirvana one may be searching for. For one thing biometrics and chips are fixed and don't change regularly. Second, is once transmitted to others, they are replicatable. Third, how will you go about changing it if it is compromised or proving your who you are. If it's the same as you do now then it is useless. There is no surefire way of preventing fraud or identity theft. However, you can make it hard for them without resorting to tagging yourself with a chip like your pet.

Good assumption, why wouldn't they continue to enrich themselves even if it does nothing for everyone else. Sadly, all the money goes to allow banks to accumulate more assets of the public which does nothing to help their credit score or borrow and spend more money. And it certainly doesn't get them more money either. The only issue is, more QE will make banks buy up assets at higher and higher values as this shell game goes on. Even though banks can let it sit at no loss thanks to a denial of mark to market on their balance sheet, at some point I don't think they will be happy to buy no matter how much liquidity the Federal Reserve throws at them.

It is also the result of Russia's plans to dump its oil to China after alienating their current customer base.