Syria expectations fade; so does trading interest

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The September global market rally is fading a bit today, perhaps understandably. Still, it's clear shifting expectations over Syriahave had an impact on trading.

Gold and oil have reversed in the past few days. The dollar has dropped. Stocks have rallied: the S&P 500 has gained 6 days in a row, up 3.1 percent in September, a traditionally down month.

The improving economic news in China have also had an impact. China's Shanghai Index is now up four days in a row, up 5.6 percent, it's best four-day win streak in nearly three years.

This has had a notable effect on emerging markets: the iShares Emerging Markets ETF has rallied 9 days in a row, up 10.7 percent.

That highlights a very important fact about emerging market investing: you have to have an iron stomach. The EEM, for example, has routinely seen 30 percent swings in either direction every six months for the last four years.

Elsewhere

1) Apple has been hit with a rare spate of downgrades. The iPhone maker was cut to neutral at UBS, Credit Suisse, and BofA/Merrill. Apple is one of the most covered stocks on Wall Street; by my count, of the 45 brokerage firms that provide analyst coverage, 35 had "Buy" or "Overweight" ratings, 9 had "Hold", and only one (ABG Sundial Collier) has a "Sell" rating.

2) The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Greece may need two more aid packages, according to Luc Coene, the president of Belgium's National Bank.

Good luck with that. There's already been two bailouts. Angela Merkel is having a tougher time than expected with the German elections, which will take place September 22nd. Polls indicate most Germans continue to support the concept of the European Union, but prefer it smaller. That means the German electorate is clearly in no mood for extended bailouts, no matter who wins.

3) The Verizon multi-tranche corporate bond offering, at $49 billion, is the biggest in history. That's triple the size of the previous largest deal, which was Apple at $17 billion. Here's the biggest corporate bond offerings:

Verizon $49B

Apple $17B (April 2013)

Roche $16.5B (Feb 2009)

ABBVie $14.7B (Nov 2012)

Pfizer $13.5B (March 2009)

GE Capital $11B (March 2002)

It's remarkable that you can have a deal this large priced in such a short period of time, and the market seems to be sucking it up immediately.

Can the market really absorb this? The short answer is yes. First, it appears to be priced a bit cheaper than other Verizon bond offerings. However, perhaps more importantly the Verizon deal will go into the main bond indexes.

Investors who benchmark to the indices need to buy this deal to maintain their allocation percentages. There will be a large number of natural buyers because of this. There will be a lot of long-only buyers.

—By CNBC's Bob Pisani