On the plus side, used car prices remain robust and dealer inventories of new cars are in good shape.  Americans are driving more, with the growth rate for miles driven (and gas consumed) running at levels not seen in +10 years.  Lastly, workers are still quitting their jobs at a healthy clip.

As for the indicators that give us pause: food stamp program participation rates are within 6% of their peaks, and the population here still runs +45 million people (15% of the entire U.S. population), money is flowing out of mutual funds but into gold coins at equally furious rates, and FBI background checks for gun sales look set to reach a new record in 2015 at 21.6 million. Before the Financial Crisis, that count never even reached 9 million.

On a lighter note, our Bacon Cheeseburger Inflation index is still negative for the year. Good for lactose-tolerant carnivores, but perhaps bad news for the Fed.

A few of us were sitting around the Convergex trading desk this morning, thinking about what surprise events had defined the capital markets and the world as a whole in 2015.