As of 3:47 p.m. there is $415 million to buy market on close.

So many things make so little sense to me -- but they make sense to the majority of investors. I don't get it, but it is the current reality. As I have suggested, it could be beginning of monthly inflows (recent equity inflows have been vigorous), but I don't know. I do know that Christmas is coming early for investors.

• Case in point: The broad strength in the energy sector (look at Schlumberger (SLB) and Exxon Mobil (XOM) as examples) against the backdrop of lower oil prices.
• Or the broad strength in closed-end municipal bond funds against higher interest rates (and lower taxable and non-taxable bond prices) today. 
• Bonds are lower, and so are municipals.
• Banks and selected financials (e.g., Oaktree (OAK) and life insurance stocks) are higher.
• Junk bonds are offered.
• Crude is down by 1%.
• TFANG was broadly lower in the early going and is now broadly higher.
• Old tech led by Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Microsoft (MSFT).
• Alibaba (Baba) has some pep in its step, but Yahoo! (YHOO), which I have liquidated, is stalling.
• Consumer non-durables are mixed, but Kimberly-Clark (KMB) is a stand out.
• Biowreck is launching a nearly 4% rally, perhaps buoyed by the stability at Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX).
• Retail was conspicuously weak in the morning and now mostly higher, too.
• No downticks today -- a steadily higher market typically characterized by buy programs.
• In looking at the drek, Twitter (TWTR) and Potash (POT) are both bouncing back.

I did little today, as my confidence level is sub-optimal.

I stopped myself out of this morning's small shorts on the SPDR S&P 500ETF (SPY) and PowerShares QQQ ETF (QQQ).

For now, shorting seems to be a "mug's game."

Houskeeping item:

I'm taking off the short of Starbucks (SBUX) that I initiated late last week, generating a small loss.

The TFANGs are turning around now, with all components save Amazon (AMZN) up on the day.

You can't keep a good acronym down!

One of the many inexplicable things I'm seeing right now -- and there seem to be a lot these days, and least to me -- is the broad strength of closed-end municipal bond funds despite rising interest rates.

But as I'm long on several of these funds, I won't quarrel with this development!

Midday musings from Sir Arthur Cashin:

"They continue to press against the resistance band with neither side relenting.  Crude waffles in a narrow negative range.

The run rate at 12:15 projects to a final NYSE volume of 780/860 million shares."

I will be offline for about the next 90 minutes as the phone company tinkers with and completes repairs on our office lines.

"Comments from the panel reflect concern over the high price of the dollar and the continuing low price of oil, mixed with cautious optimism about steady to increasing demand in several industries."

-- October Institute of Supply Management U.S. Manufacturing Index report (released this morning)

Let's parse through this morning's domestic economic data:

The October ISM Manufacturing Index came in about in line at 50.1 vs. the 50.9 expected. But that's still the lowest reading since May 2013, as well as down for a fourth month and against 50.2 in September and a 53.5 peak this year. (The year-to-date average is 52.)

New orders rose 2.8 points to 52.9, but remain below their six-month average of 53.8. Just eight of 18 industries saw increases. Backlogs rose 1 point, but remained firmly negative at 42.5. Employment was particularly soft, falling almost 3 points to 47.6 -- the weakest since August 2009 -- with only five of 18 industries adding staff.

Export orders rose 1 point -- but at 47.5 are below 50 for a fifth-straight month. Manufacturing inventories fell 2 points to 46.5 -- their lowest level since December -- while customer inventories dropped 3.5 points, although that's off of their highest levels since January 2009. Prices paid remained subdued at 39, up 1 point but still well below 50.

Of the 18 industries surveyed, seven saw growth -- similar to the trend seen in September. Nine saw contraction vs. 11 a month earlier.

The challenges that U.S. companies are experiencing (as seen in today's flatline number) should come as no surprise. We've already seen problems in the soft regional-manufacturing data, thanks to the stronger U.S. dollar and very modest overseas economic activity.

But in the entire current U.S. economic expansion, we've only seen two softer ISM reports than today's. One came in November 2012, quickly followed by more weakness in the next month's report. Both coincided with two rounds of Federal Reserve quantitative easing.

What this means for markets is anyone's guess, and what this means for the Fed is central bankers' problem -- they made their own bed! They want off of 0% interest rates, but they've never before hiked rates with the ISM index this low. In fact, they've previously cut rates or done more QE.

Frankly, the Fed has a dual problem. On one hand, interest rates shouldn't still be at zero some seven years into an economic recovery. On the other hand, how can the central bank hike rates in light of the continued mediocre domestic data that we're seeing?

Stay tuned.

Break in! George Soros has reportedly pulled the $500 million he invested in 2014 with Bill Gross.

Midmorning musings from Sir Arthur Cashin:

"Crude pares its earlier losses, and that puts a bid under equities. The S&P now contending with a resistance band at 2092/2096.

Yields up a bit and dollar softer -- both on (European Central Bank chief Mario) Draghi weekend interview, where he seemed to be a touch hesitant on expanding QE."

Housekeeping item:

I had previously gone short against my remaining Twitter (TWTR) stock by selling some December $30 Twitter calls at $3.30.

But given Twitter's recent drop back down towards $28 a share, I covered my short calls today for about a $2-a-share gain.

Overall, I remain long (small) on Twitter.

I'm further reducing my bank exposure this morning by selling First Merit Corp. (FMER) at $18.80 and taking this regional bank off of my "Best Ideas" list.

Despite futures weakness early this morning, the market has so far carried its merry ways of October into November's first trading session. 

A possible early blemish is weakness in the TFANGs, with only Tesla (TSLA) trading higher. But overall, I see early month investment inflows sparking this morning's broad pop.

As such, I've started to reposition on the short side of the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) this morning at $208.98 and the PowerShares QQQ ETF (QQQ) at $113.72. I also continued to pare back my longs of money-center banks. (Click here to read Jim "El Capitan" Cramer's latest take on the banking sector.)

"Disasters have a way of not happening."

-- Byron Wien, The Blackstone Group

The U.S. stock market staged a vigorous rally during the past four weeks that was unexpected by many (including me).

Here's what I (re)learned as a result:

1. Disasters have a way of not happening. The month began on a sour note, with many pundits saying the S&P 500 was in a primary downtrend and had another 5% to 10% of weakness ahead for the month. But I should always remember what Blackstone Group's Byron Wien has said and written in the past: "Disasters have a way of not happening."

2. Perma-bulls (like perma-bears) are attention getters. The "Chicken Little" crowd got bigger at month's beginning, but the sky didn't fall. Extreme views are attention getters, not money makers -- and dogma is often a four-letter word.

3.Pay attention to investor sentiment when it's at an extreme. I should have paid more attention to the sentiment extreme that existed five weeks ago. The late-September low saw a deep drop in bullish investor sentiment and a move more than four standard deviations below the 50-day moving average.

4.The market remains preoccupied with easier global monetary policy. More "cowbell" (or even just the hope for more cowbell) typically moves markets higher. Despite signs that the marginal impacts of ever-lower rates and more liquidity have been reduced or don't exist at all, rate cuts are still a powerful elixir for stocks.

5. Quants rule the day -- they move markets up and down. Quants base their price-trend strategies, risk-parity portfolios and volatility-managed strategies solely on stocks' past price performance and volatility. They're agnostic about balance sheets and income statements, while fundamental investors like Warren Buffett are an anathema to them and the term "intrinsic value" isn't even in their vocabulary. But they're far more dangerous than portfolio insurance, which put an exclamation point in the 1987 market crash. And they're also influential on the upside. There's a positive-feedback loop between all of these strategies. Gamma hedging of derivatives caused higher market volatility in late September, which in turn led to selling in risk-parity portfolios. The resulting downward price action invited further CTA or price-trend strategies' shorting. Then, we experienced the feedback loop to the upside during October. By producing outsized market moves to both the downside and the upside, quants provide both buying and selling opportunities.

6.  Greed vs. fear. A combination of hope and low interest rates can often overcome desperation, fear of slow growth and other substantive and logically reasoned headwinds.

7. Tech nearly always leads the market. This almost never changes, and it certainly didn't in October. Tech stocks led to the downside in September and to the upside in October.

8. Perception vs. reality. It's not the news that counts, it's how markets respond to the news that matters.

9. The hardest trade is often the best trade. The hardest trade to make the end of September was to buy stocks. But as it turns out, that would have also been the best trade to make.

10. The Curse of the Billy Goat Lives! The Chicago Cubs are doomed for another 100 years.

And here's one bonus thing that I also (re)learned ...

11. After the fact, few admit they were wrong. This is an all-too-common occurrence on business TV, where many talking heads are "sweepers" (sweeping their mistakes under the rug). That's a constant reminder that we shouldn't to pay attention to those who never admit to being wrong. Saying "I don't know" or "I was wrong" are far too rare in our mercenary investment world, even though they're the mark of a true professional. But if one lacks the confidence to say these phrases, they're probably b.s. artists. It reminds me, once again, of a play on the words of a famous Albert Camus quote: "There is always a philosophy for lack of honesty."

Peter Boockvar explores Asian market weakness, European Union sovereign bonds and the latest European data this morning:

"It was another poor performance in Asian stock markets overnight in response to soft economic data out of China. We know the Chinese manufacturing sector is weak, and that side of Beijing's PMI hit 49.8 for October. It's been hovering around the flatline of 50 over the past 12 months. But the issue is more the services sector, where the PMI fell to 53.1 -- the weakest reading since December '08 and down from 53.4 last month. However, the internals were mixed. New orders rose one point to a four-month high, and business expectations rose to their highest level since August '14.

But these data points cover mostly the state-sector companies. The Caixin/Markit manufacturing PMI, which measures mostly private-sector firms, rose 1.1 points m/o/m to 48.3. That's better than the estimate of 47.6, but still below 50 for the 10th month out of the last 11.

Manufacturing PMIs also remained below 50 for Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Indonesia. India's PMI is now barely above 50 at 50.7, while Vietnam's rose 0.6 pts to 50.1. Japan's final print was 52.4, the best read in a year and the lone outlier to the upside.

We also saw weekend trade date from South Korea that pointed to weakness. Seoul said October exports fell 15.8% y/o/y -- the worst read since August '09. The estimate had been for a 14.5% drop. Exports fell to China, Japan, the United States and the EU. Imports plunged 16.6% vs. an estimate of -13.5%. But the Kospi did gain a touch overnight, making it one of the few Asian markets that were higher.

Elsewhere in the region, the Shanghai index fell 1.7%, the H share index was down for a fifth straight day, the ASX was lower for the sixth session in a row and the Nikkei closed down 2.1%. Among currencies, the yuan was down sharply overnight after a big rally (relatively speaking) on Friday.

The S&P 500 futures initially showed softness off of the Asian markets' weakness, but that reversed when European manufacturing PMI data came out. That indicator's final read came in at 52.3, up slightly from the initial print of 52. (The index had had a 52-handle read for eight straight months.)

Italy was a bright spot and Germany was revised upward, but Spain fell and France was left little changed. And Markit didn't sound that enthusiastic about the European recovery, writing: 'The Eurozone manufacturing recovery remains disappointingly insipid. The October survey is signaling factory output growth of only 2% per annum, a lackluster performance given the amount of central bank stimulus in place.' The DAX is the European market standout this morning.

European sovereign bonds are down across the board today after European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi said in an interview over the weekend that it was still an 'open question' of whether the ECB will announce more Quantitative Easing. On the possibility of a deposit-rate cut to further below 0%, Draghi said it was 'too early' to decide. However, he certainly made clear that 'if we are convinced that our medium-term inflation target is at risk, we will take the necessary actions.'

The euro isn't responding either way, as it's unchanged. But European bond weakness is spilling over to the United States, with the two-year Treasury note's yield up to 0.75% and the 10-year back at 2.17%, exactly where it closed on Dec. 31.

The U.K. manufacturing PMI was a surprise to the upside in October, rising to 55.5 from 51.8 and above the estimate of 51.3. It's the best read in 16 months, and Markit said 'sector data pointed to broad-based expansions of both output and new business during October.' But the caveat was this: 'The latest survey still provided evidence that growth is being driven by a narrow section of the manufacturing industry, as strong and surging growth at large-sized companies contrasted sharply with the more subdued expansion at SMEs.'

The FTSE is the only major European stock market not rallying this morning, as its commodity-heavy index is responding directly to Asian weakness. But the pound is higher and the 10-year gilt's yield is at a six-week high.

Here at home, the U.S. ISM manufacturing index is expected to be exactly flatline at 50 for October."

Goldman Sachs has downgradedValeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX) to Neutral from Buy today and has taken the name off of its "Americas Buy" list.

I recently took a critical view of both VRX and "roll-ups" in general.