Let's quickly take a look at the events of the week by region, see if there any changes in core beliefs and then turn to asset allocation and specific recommendations.

1. As I mentioned last week, the U.S consumer is in great shape and continues to support the economic expansion more than offsetting industrial weakness most prevalent in weak export numbers. Specifically, consumer confidence rose to 92.1 in October from 87.2 in September; consumer expectations out six months rose to 82.7 from 78.2 in September; the consumer view of their personal finances rose to 106.8 from 101.2 last month; consumer comfort index rose to 45.2 and is up 5 points in a month and retail sales rose a mere 80.1 percent in September from August. The surprise for the week was that the Consumer Price Index fell a seasonally adjusted 0.2 percent in September and was unchanged year over year. Excluding food and energy, the core CPI actually rose 0.2 percent in September and 1.9 percent year over year. Social security recipients, over 56 million strong, will not get an increase in the cost of living index in 2016. Tell them there is no inflation in the country!

Relative strength by the consumer is being partially offset by continued weakness in factory output, which declined 0.1 percent last month. Manufacturing comprises only 12 percent of the economy and will remain a drag for quite some time. By the way, capacity utilization declined to a three month low of 77.5.

Finally the Beige Book came out and supported only a "modest expansion" at the end of the third quarter. Many of the districts blamed the strong dollar saying it was hurting exports and tourism. Clearly the Fed is on hold for now and maybe longer than we think despite several world central bankers asking for the Fed to end the drama and to finally lift rates. Waiting has been unsettling to the global economies, as we have mentioned many times too. Since estimates of future global growth are still falling, the Fed is on HOLD.

2. The big news out of Europe is that Switzerland is set to impose 5 percent leverage ratios on its largest banks, which include Credit Suisse and UBS up from around 3.7 percent as mandated by Basel III. The Swiss authorities are following the lead of U.S. regulators who set the same levels for our biggest banks. It's quite simple: Higher capital ratios mean less lending. Dodd Frank and Basel III have certainly reduced financial risk in the economy at the expense of growth.

While growth in Europe has clearly bottomed, it won't reach earlier estimates due to weakness in foreign economies impacting exports. But the European consumer is clearly doing better which bodes well for 2016.

3. China is set to report its third quarter GNP on Monday and the general consensus is that growth will be around 7 percent, which is the weakest quarter in six years. China Premier Li has been vocal recently committing to moving forward on market-oriented reforms to open up the country more to foreigners, ongoing urbanization, more transparency and increased infrastructure spending. Services and consumer spending are supporting growth while manufacturing and exports are relatively weak. A familiar story. By the way, credit growth has accelerated recently as monetary easing has spurred loans. The CPI increased 1.6 percent in September from a year earlier, while the PPI fell 5.9 percent. There is more room for further monetary and regulatory initiatives to stimulate growth as has occurred elsewhere.

4. Japan's government recently lowered its targets for growth this year as output/industrial production is weaker than anticipated due to slower growth overseas. Here again, consumer spending is holding up as employment and wages are slowly increasing, and lower energy costs are boosting disposable personal income.