Heading into today’s big data dump out of the US, traders were already on edge after the recent perilous drop in global equities and growing fears of Eurozone Sovereign Debt Crisis 2.0. Over the last few months, the US economy has always rode in on a white horse at times like this to assuage concerns of a coordinate economic slowdown, but today, the white horse was more of a lame mule. Expectations for the most widely-watched release of the day, September’s Retail Sales report, were already subdued after a particularly strong +0.6% reading last month, but even that low hurdle proved too difficult to clear. The ... (full story)