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Daniel Goodman / Business Insider
Nothing really happened today.
First the scoreboard:
Dow: 12,951, -13.8, -0.1 percent

S&P 500: 1,407, -2.4, -0.1 percent

NASDAQ: 2,996, -5.5, -0.1 percent

And now the top stories:
  • There was no major economic data released today.

  • On the earnings front, homebuilder Toll Brothers blew away expectations. Revenue and earnings are surging.  And orders are exploding higher.  "We enjoyed resurgent activity across all of our product lines and in most of our geographic regions," wrote the company in there release.  All of this only confirms the housing recovery story we've been hearing about all year.

  • On housing, CoreLogic reported that home prices jumped 6.3 percent year-over-year in October.  This is the fastest pace of home price growth in six years.

  • Gold prices slipped back below $1,700 per ounce today, even as overseas central banks announced more easy monetary policy.

  • Tech giant Oracle announced that it would accelerate its dividend to beat a potential dividend tax hike.  As the fiscal cliff approaches, more and more companies are either accelerating dividends or paying out special one time dividends in advance of the impending expiration of the Bush-era tax cuts, which could send the dividend tax from 15 percent to 43.4 percent.

  • Meanwhile, fiscal cliff talks continue to go nowhere.