The "end of the end of QE talk." First ISM, then ISM services, then ADP, then initial jobless claims, and now nonfarm payrolls...but man! A 95,000 increase in private payrolls? Most of the people I talked to were expecting north of 200,000 ... how do you get a miss that big?

This is exactly what some Federal Reserve officials feared: that the economy would start getting a head of steam, then just fade.

Is this just the economy taking a breather, or the start of a protracted downturn?

Limit up, limit down is finally here. On Monday, April 8th all stock exchanges will begin a rollout of a new series of "circuit breakers" designed to calm markets during high volatility.

Known as "limit up, limit down" (LULD), it will replace the old single-stock circuit breakers as well as the NYSE's own liquidity replenishment points (LRP).

What's new? The old single-stock circuit breakers were designed to halt trading in a stock for five minutes if it moved more than 10 percent from its price in the previous five minutes.

The problem: an administrative mess as a lot of stocks were halted, and there were often many erroneous trades that needed to be cancelled.

LULD is a refinement on this: it is designed to prevent trading outside of specific price bands, while allowing the stock to continue to trade within those bands.

The result (hopefully): far fewer stocks will be halted and far fewer erroneous trades.

Here's a simplified example. Suppose a stock trading at $10 drops five percent in five minutes, to $9.50. Under LULD, the stock would be halted for five minutes if it trades at $9.50 for 15 seconds, but would remain open for trading if it traded above $9.50.

The rollout on Monday will include part of the S&P 500 and Russell 1000 and will be fully rolled out for both indices within a week or so. It will also include selected Exchange Traded Products (ETPs).

No protection in the open nor the close. One other point: the LULD's will initially only operate between 9:45 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.; there will be no LULD from 9:30-9:45 a.m. and 3:30-4:00 p.m.

A Phase II that begins in October will expand the time LULD's operate to the full trading day, from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Why is that? My sense is that the SEC wanted the exchanges to have some operational experience before they got the LULD involved in the critical opening and closing periods.

But that leaves the open and the close with virtually no circuit breakers. If things go crazy...for whatever reason...there is nothing to slow the market down.

That makes me a little nervous.

A disappointing morning for those hoping for the reflation trade:despite Mr. Kuroda's bold action at the Bank of Japan, gold and oil are down, though there is a modest bounce in steel and commodity stocks.

But energy is flat, after a couple terrible days where drillers and exploration and production stocks were hit hard.

And the rest of the market isn't show much signs of life, either.

My take: hopes for future reflation can't trump the string of weak U.S. economic numbers this week. ISM, ISM Services, ADP and today's weekly jobless claims all were disappointments.

Meantime, big bond ETFs are up for a second day in a row...no sign of that Great Rotation out of bonds, into stocks.

So who's right...stocks or bonds? The bond market is saying that with yields remaining at their lows, the economic growth is sluggish. The stock market, sitting near new highs, is saying corporate profits are near record highs.

Who's right? They both are a little right. Economic growth is sluggish...two percent GDP...that's sluggish...but corporate profits are at record highs. How did they get there with sluggish growth?

Corporate America has become cost cutting monsters and have learned to do more with less.

My sense is that the bond market has got it a little more right...but here's my problem: they're both being manipulated by the Fed. The Fed is standing on the head of the bond market, keeping rates low, and they're inflating the stock market. How much? I know people who think the Dow would be 1 to 2 thousand points lower without QE2 or QE3.

Haruhiko Kuroda to Ben Bernanke: My bazooka is bigger than your bazooka.

Expectations were so high for the Bank of Japan (BOJ) meeting that new chief Haruhiko Kuroda would have to emerge in a Samurai suit to impress anyone.

He not only came out with a Samurai suit on, he came out swinging a sword—a big sword.

To achieve an inflation target of 2 percent within two years, the BOJ is doubling its purchase of Japanese bonds to roughly 7 trillion (about $79 billion) per month. That is well beyond the roughly 4 trillion to 5 trillion yen many analysts were expecting.

Remember, the Federal Reserve is buying $85 billion a month. But Japan's gross domestic product (GDP) is one-third our size, so this bond-buying program is essentially three times the size of ours. More importantly, this will double Japan's monetary base in two years, to 270 trillion yen. That is about 50 percent of the GDP of the entire country.

First, a soft ISM, now a soft ADP and soft ISM Services (with a decline in employment and new orders).

I've made no secret that I have not been pleased with the market internals for the past week. I get plenty of comments telling me to shut up, the S&P 500 is at an historic high, stop being such a crank.

Regardless. I'm not happy when I see cyclicals like Dow Transports and small caps outperform a small group of big-cap stocks.

Major Indices over the past two weeks:

• Dow Industrials 1.1%
• Dow Transports -3.3%
• Russell 2000 -1.8%
• S&P MidCap -0.7%

I am particularly unhappy when I see these large-cap stocks led by classically defensive names.

S&P sectors over the past two weeks:

• Healthcare 5.0%
• Cons. Staples 3.5%
• Telecom 2.6%
• Industrials -1.5%
• Materials -2.8%

Sorry, call me a crank, but I am a growth guy...I do not want the market led for long periods of time by consumer stocks.

And financials? Fuhgeddaboutit! Again today, two to three percent declines in all the big names, which are quietly now on the verge of correction territory.

Big banks from recent highs:

• Morgan Stanley -14.2%
• Citigroup -9.9%
• Goldman Sachs -9.7%
• Bank of America -8.6%
• JPMorgan -7.6%

Similar declines are playing out in big energy names, particularly in oil service, drilling, and exploration and production names. It's been a particularly brutal week for this group, with declines of nine percent in drillers like Nabors (NBR), a nearly six percent decline in Noble (NE), and 4.3 percent decline in equipment providers like Cameron International (CAM).

What does it all mean? It boils down to a simple phrase: global growth fears. Consider:

• Copper 8-Month Low
• Aluminum 8-Month Low
• Iron Ore Stocks 8-Month Lows

All of this, of course, is closely related to fears of a China slowdown, and continued recession in Europe.

First, a soft ISM, now a soft ADP.

March ADP at 158,000 was a huge miss over the consensus of 194,000; that is not a good sign for the nonfarm payroll report on Friday. Since ADP revised its methodology late last year, it has been much more accurate in its relation to the jobs report.

This is likely one of the main reasons we have seen a stock market at new highs, but with a very strange feature: consumers rule, cyclicals lag. Consumer index up 3.1 percent last two weeks, Cyclical index down 2.2 percent.

It's been all about Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Altria, and Procter & Gamble ... meanwhile steel and energy have been a mess, Bank of America and Citigroup trickle lower, while tech is mixed.

Why is this happening? There is good evidence that European investors are putting money into the U.S. markets; indeed, there is good evidence that the U.S. is where most international investors want to be. So why are consumer names in the U.S. outperforming cyclicals?

U.S. futures up. Europe mostly up as well...huh? It's odd that volumes were weak yesterday on the first trading day of the quarter, which normally sees some inflows. Maybe it's because Europe was closed yesterday?

That may be the story: Money is coming into the U.S. from other parts of the world.

That seems to be the case with exchange-traded funds. The global ETF industry saw record first-quarter inflows, according to BlackRock. Investors piled into stock funds, which accounted for 93 percent of inflows.

Developed market stock funds pulled in big money, while demand for emerging market stocks sank. Still no clear sign of any "Great Rotation" out of bonds and into stocks. Bond funds garnered $11.6 billion in the first quarter, notching an eighth consecutive quarter with inflows of at least $10 billion.

First day of the quarter a "sell the gainers" event: major sectors show perfect inverse image of Q1 performance.

The two outperformers in Q1 were the Dow Transports and Russell 2000. However, the two biggest decliners today are the transportation stocks and small-cap names.

Not surprisingly, industrials and materials are notably weak. You have a double whammy of below-expectation ISM manufacturing data in the U.S. and it's counterpart, China, is also a little short. And, of course, we are in recession territory for manufacturing indices in Europe.

Little wonder that copper futures are breaking to a nearly eight-month low...and that metal stocks across the board (aluminum, steel, iron ore, copper, and coal) are down three percent or more.

And note new lows in AK Steel (AKS), ArcelorMittal (MT), and coal producer Walter Energy (WLT).

And with oil down, many big oil service names - Halliburton (HAL) and Schlumberger (SLB) - and drillers Hercules Offshore (HERO) and Superior Energy (SPN) are down three to four percent.

Tech is also weak: Micron Technology (MU) is down four percent, leading chip stocks lower.

One of the survey respondents to the ISM manufacturing survey, who works in computer and electronic products, summed up the sentiment by saying that that "second half of 2013 looks promising, the first half is a mixed bag."

If today's declines hold, it would be the first time since Q4 2011 that the S&P 500 has been down on the first trading day of a quarter (thank you, Robert Hum).

New highs, but stock market slightly defensive in tone. The quarter ended with the biggest gains in the last two weeks from the most defensive sectors: healthcare, utilities, consumer staples. Financials, industrials, tech and basic materials lagged.

Since 1945, whenever the S&P 500 recorded a positive performance in the first quarter, the average performance for the three remaining quarters improved by an average 1.2, 1.1, and 0.4 percentage points, respectively, according to Sam Stovall at S&P Capital IQ.

Next week, much of the action will again be outside the United States, with the European Central Bank (ECB) and the Bank of Japan (BOJ) both holding meetings.

ECB: Cyprus is serious trouble for Draghi. There's been speculation that the ECB may cut rates, particularly in light of weak economic data and low inflation.

But that's a side story. Draghi has much bigger problems. He was oddly quiet this week, but it's clear that events in Cyprus are bad news for the ECB. He is very worried that the actions in Cyprus will create a whole new wave of weak southern European banks that will go to the ECB asking for emergency funding.