Dow at another record but Fed may be running out of gas

US stocks rose on Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rising 0.14 percent to close at another record high.

“The focus is right again back to the Fed. The thinking is perhaps the taper has been moved forward. Maybe it's not going to be March, maybe December,” said Bucky Hellwig, senior vice president of BB&T Wealth Management, according to Reuters.

“You can't argue with the momentum the market has had thus far, so it looks like we're still in that upward trend,” Hellwig said.

In contrast, Bridgewater's Ray Dalio thinks that Fed stimulus may be losing effectiveness. Via Zero Hedge:

The dilemma the Fed faces now is that the tools currently at its disposal are pretty much used up, in that interest rates are at zero and US asset prices have been driven up to levels that imply very low levels of returns relative to the risk, so there is very little ability to stimulate from here if needed...

In other words, we're not worried about whether the Fed is going to hit or release the gas pedal, we're worried about whether there's much gas left in the tank and what will happen if there isn't.

There were no major economic reports from the US on Monday. Economic data elsewhere in the world were mixed.

In China, a report showed that credit growth slowed in October. Chinese banks made 506.1 billion yuan worth of new local-currency loans in October, less than the 787 billion yuan in September. Total social financing aggregate was 856.4 billion yuan in October, down from 1.4 trillion yuan the month before.

In Japan, the current account surplus rose 14.3 percent in September from a year earlier.

However, service sector sentiment in Japan deteriorated in October. The current conditions index from the economy watchers survey fell to 51.8 last month from 52.8 in September.

The future conditions index, though, rose to 54.5 in October from 54.2 in September.