american flag unicycle
mikebaird / Flickr
U.S. markets opened positively, but slowly sold off.
First the scoreboard:
Dow: 13,579, -17.4, -0.1%

S&P 500: 1,460, -0.1, -0.0%

NASDAQ: 3,179, +4.0, +0.1%

And now the top stories:
  • There was no major economic data, earnings announcements, or major corporate actions to report today.

  • Legendary hedge fund manager Ray Dalio gave a rare interview to CNBC today.  Among other things, he said that he thought the Federal Reserve's new unlimited quantitative easing policy was a "reasonable plan."  He also warns that should China's growth rate slow to 5 percent, that would be a major problem.  "The fact that they can have 6% growth and think that's depressing and we can have 2% growth and think that that's pretty good is a reflection of the difference in our competitiveness," he said.

  • Dalio also warned about ongoing social tensions and pointed to how Hitler rose to power: "When people—get at each other's throat, the rich and the poor and the left and the right and so on, and you have a basic breakdown,that becomes very threatening. And for example, Hitler came to power in 1933, which was the depth of the Great Depression because of the social tension between the factions. So I think it very much is dependent on how the people work this through together and worry about the social elements." 

  • In an interesting note to clients today, Goldman Sachs economist Alec Phillips noted that should we go off the "fiscal cliff," the rich and the poor would get hit hardest by the expiring tax cuts and spending plans. 

  • According to a new report, S&P sees U.S. GDP growth decelerating in the second half of 2012.  They also see a 20 to 25 percent chance of another recession.

  • Apple began selling it's new iPhone 5 today, and people were lining up.  Piper Jaffray's Gene Munster estimates that lines were up 83 percent year-over-year.