Mr. Market is obviously in a holding pattern – drifting lower, but without conviction. Clearly, there is no consensus yet as to who will win the US election. While Romney seems to be creeping ahead in the national polls, it seems Obama still has a good chance to be re-elected. Most of the polls are based on robo-calls where cell phones cannot be contacted by law. People with cell phones are more likely to be young and Democratic-leaning. This leaves open the possibility of a Dewey-Truman type election. Truman the Democrat won even though the polls had Dewey leading. In those days, many poor people (that lean Democratic) did not have telephones, so were not contacted by the pollsters.

Furthermore, Obama still has narrow leads in most of the important swing states. Because of the electoral college system, the national popular vote is technically meaningless. A vote in Ohio is valuable – a vote in California, Texas or New York is not. Normally, the popular vote winner also gets enough electoral college votes, but in a close election that's not always the case. In 2000, Gore got over a half million more votes than Bush, but lost in the electoral college due to the debacle in Florida.

I don't believe the market will do anything until it gets a sense as to who will win. Mr. Market simply does not like uncertainty. There's even the possibility of another situation like 2000, where there is no clear winner until long after the election. That would be the worst possible outcome – especially with the fiscal cliff approaching.

As for Venture, judging by the volume patterns, it looks like the current pullback is just that, and not the start of another downturn. Gold stocks seem to be in a similar situation. Shanghai looks shakier - it's possible it's bottomed, but no clear evidence yet.

Bottom line: I think Obama wins, and we'll have a nice year-end rally lifting most boats. But if Romney wins, or there is another situation like Bush vs Gore, all bets are off.