Submitted by Brandon Smith via Alt-Market.com,

Earlier in the session, after the surge in oil prices on fears of a spike in belligerence between Saudi Arabia and Iran, bulls were hopeful that after a poor close to 2015, at least the first trading day of 2016 would set a positive mood: after all, if there is one thing war is good for, it is to lift stock markets. And it did... for about 3 hours.

Presented with no comment...

Source: Townhall.com

Authored by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, publish op-ed via The Wall Street Journal,

Worry less about the banking system, but commodities, epidemics and climate volatility could be trouble

How should we think about financial risks in 2016? 

Back in July we first revealed something troubling: leadership breadth was collapsing not just across the Nasdaq...

... but the broader market as well:

As the WSJ had calculated, out of a total of 500 stocks, just Amazon, Google, Apple, Facebook, Gilead and Walt Disney accounted for more than all of the $199 billion in market-capitalization gains in the S&P 500. In fact, as of July, just these six firms were responsible for more than half of the $664 billion in value added to the Nasdaq Composite Index as of July.