10:30 am : Commodities are taking a hit today due to broad market weakness, which was led by a 5% decline in Chinese stocks.

The dollar index has pulled back though from overnight activity, falling into negative territory and to recent session lows of 77.697. it's currently trading just above that low. In the CRB Index, 18 of the 19 components are trading lower.

Energy and gold markets are outperforming the grains and soft commodities, but are still in the red (down ~0.8-2.3%).

December crude oil has been in the red all session. it hit session lows of $85.51 per barrel overnight and is currently 2.4% lower at $85.68 per barrel. Except for a brief moment, December natural gas has also been in the red all session. The energy component hit session lows of $3.86 per MMBtu around the time pit trading opened and is now just under the unchanged line at $3.92 per MMBtu.

In the precious metals space, silver is underperforming gold and is currently 2.1% lower at $26.83 per ounce, while December silver is down 1.3% at $1385.70 per ounce.DJ30 -45.90 NASDAQ -13.50 SP500 -7.70 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 668/465.7 mln/1705 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 647/198.5 mln/2105

10:00 am : Stocks have trimmed their opening losses, but the move has paused in the minutes following the release of the latest consumer sentiment reading.

The preliminary Consumer Sentiment Survey for November from the University of Michigan came in at 69.3, which is slightly above the 69.0 that had been expected among economists polled by Briefing.com. The November reading also marked an improvement from the 67.7 that was recorded in October.