With December 16 marking the last opportunity for the Federal Reserve (Fed) to raise interest rates in 2015, market participants now put the odds of a Fed rate hike in December at nearly 80%—up from the 32% probability given to a rate hike just three months ago in September.

The euro area and the United States are comparable in numerous ways, including population and relative economic size. Since the financial crisis, they have also shared a common goal of escaping from the jaws of a balance sheet recession, as deleveraging has posed a headwind to economic growth on both continents.

One of the big trends in the exchange-traded fund (ETF) industry has been this year’s flow of new money into developed world equity ETFs, both unhedged and currency hedged. WisdomTree estimates that nearly $100 billion of this year’s $171 billion in ETF industry inflows cascaded into these funds through the end of October.

Next year’s “open election,” where there is no incumbent in the race, may present a new obstacle for the stock market to overcome. With grassroots voters in each party coalescing around nontraditional candidates, not only are the early poll results a signal of wider discontent in the electorate, they also widen the possible policy outcomes that could follow next November’s elections.

Back on July 20, with U.S. stock indexes not far from their yearly highs, I said on CNBC that I expected the market to become choppier over the next three months. I pointed out that with the S&P 500 Index trading at nearly 19 times—and corporate earnings unlikely to advance in the second half of the year—the market would need to digest not just the slowdown in China but also the uncertainty that would accompany a pending Federal Reserve rate hike.