The last trading week of October begins on Monday, October 27th with investors wondering if the previous weeks bounce back market rally was the start of the anticipated fourth quarter bull market or just a dead cat bounce ahead of a deeper bear market to come.

The oil market takes another broadside hit when heavyweight Goldman Sachs Group joined others bears in saying that crude oil could fall to US$75-a-barrel.

Brazilian markets pulled back their most in almost three-years on word that left leaning President Dilma Rousseff had been re-elected.

Under our continuing heading of ‘Name Dropper’ – The share price of Pain Therapeutics (PTIE-Q) and Durect Corp. (DRRX-Q) plunged by over 53% and 45% respectively when pharmaceutical giant Pfizer (PFE-N) said it would not carry on with the development of their pain relief drug Remoxy.

Twitter Inc. (TWTR-N) had the market all-a-twitter on Tuesday, October 28th when company’s stock fell by over 10% to US$43.61 when the smartphone communications company reported less than expected 3rd-quarter financials and worse yet, lowered its growth prospects for the rest of the year.

B2Gold (BTO-T) suffered the same fate as other resource companies that underachieve in the current poor resource market as the intermediate sized gold producer’s stock dropped by over 7% to $2.11 on a less than impressive third quarter financial report.

Madison Square Garden (MSG-N) shares’ rose by almost 11% to US$73.00 when the New York based entertainment/sports company announced plans to separate its different divisions into separate entities.

Europe seems to be winning the war against greenhouse gases as the European Union reported that its 28-nation members’ greenhouse gas emissions had dropped by 2% in the past year and by 19% since 1990.

The markets surged higher on word that Sweden’s central bank had lowered its key overnight interest rate by a greater than expected 0.5% to….now wait for it……0.0%.

The U.S. Federal Open Market Committee finally told the American bond market that it was on its own on Wednesday, October 29th as it finally called an end to its temporary (?) Quantitative Easing Program (QE) that eventually ran for six-years and ended up buying some U.S. $4.48-trillion of U.S. corporate debt.

Uranium giant Cameco Corp. (CCO-T) and multi-resource Sherritt International (S-T) reported third quarter financials on the Canadian side, while social media giant Facebook (FB-Q) did the same on the American side.

Everyone has one or the other of their cards in their wallets and on Thursday, October 30th more people wished they owned their stock as well when the share prices of         MasterCard Inc. (MA-N) and Visa Inc. (V-N) rose by almost 9% and 10% respectively when the credit card companies reported stellar third quarter financials.

Conversely, Barrick Gold (ABX-T), Goldcorp Inc. (G-T) and Yamana Gold all saw their share price drop as the gold miners reported less than stellar third quarter financials made worse by falling gold price environment.

The share price of newly listed Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV (FCAU-N) rose by over 11.6% to US$10.85 when the company said it planned to spin out its high-end Ferrari division as a separate publicly trading entity.

The Bank of Japan shocked the investment world on Friday, October 31st when it announced it would not only keep its Quantitative Easing Program (QE) going but also increase it by an additional 30-trillion yen to 80-trillion yen or US$723.4-billion a year.

The move by the Bank of Japan caused the Yen to drop, the U.S. dollar and most non-resource equities to surge higher while pushing crude oil and precious metal prices sharply lower.

The Bank of Japan helped to create a week of extremes as the DJIA at 17,391 and the S&P 500 Index at 2,018 reached a new record closing highs, while crude oil fell to a 2-year,       4-month low of US$80.54-a-barrel, as gold bullion plunged to a new 4½ -year low of US$1,171 and the TSX Venture Exchange dropped to a new six-year low of 770.

Statistics Canada reported that, led by a downturn in mining and oil & gas extraction output, the Canadian economy declined by an unexpected 0.1% in August, the first economic decline in the past eight months.

Lightstream Resources (LTS-T) shares’ fell by over 7% to $2.98 when the petroleum producer’s 2014 guidance didn’t meet the market’s expectations.

Similarly, the price of Sirius XM Canada Holdings (XSR-T) shares’ dropped by almost 18% to $5.81 when the satellite radio provider lowered its growth prospects for the rest of the year.

Cargojet Inc. (CJT-T) at $24.98, Loblaw Companies (L-T) at $59.20 and Stella-Jones (SJ-T) at $34.40 all established new TSX 52-week trading highs while Canadian Oil Sands (COS-T), Sherritt International (S-T) at $2.58 and Talisman Energy (TLM-T) at $6.85 all set new TSX 52-week closing lows.

For the Week – The Dow Industrials gained 3.49% to 17,391, while the S&P 500 Index rose by 2.70% to 2,018 and the NASDAQ Exchange was higher by 3.28% to 4,631. To the fall is in the air north, the TSX Composite Index rose by 0.47% to 14,613 while the lowly TSX Venture Exchange lost another 4.35% to 770.

Gold bullion fell by 4.95% to US$1,171 while copper gained 0.33% to US$3.05, with crude oil down 0.58% to US$80.54 and natural gas up by 4.49% to US$3.96. Overall, the CRB Spot Commodity Index was unchanged at 460.

The Canadian dollar fell by another 0.31% against the American buck to US$0.8874.

And the closely watched CBOE Volatility Index or VIX dropped by 2.08-points to a much calmer level of 14.03.

And Finally – Scientist have determined that the time of mankind has changed the earth enough over the past 12,000 years that we have earned the name ‘Anthropocene’ – or ‘The Age of Humans’ to mark our period in history.