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U.S. stocks stumbled out of the gate and major European bourses suffered heavy losses Monday after another weekend of negative headlines in the eurozone.

First, Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union party suffered big losses in a local election for the second straight week. In North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany's largest state, the CDU received just 26% of the vote while a coalition of left-leaning Social Democrats and Green party candidates received over 50%.

The election results raise the risk that Merkel's government will be ousted in the general election next year and embolden newly elected French President Francois Hollande to push harder for pro-growth measures in the EU vs. the austerity favored by Merkel.

Second, Greek party leaders failed to form a coalition government, raising the possibility of another national election in Europe's most-troubled economy. The political crisis comes amid rising market expectations that Greece will exit the eurozone sooner rather than later.

Notably, NY Times columnist Paul Krugman mused this weekend that Greece could abandon the euro as soon as "next month," which he speculates could be the beginning of the "end game" for the euro itself. "And we're talking about months, not years, for this to play out," he writes.

In the accompanying video, Henry and I discuss these latest euro-developments with Ian Bremmer, president of Eurasia Group and author of Every Nation for Itself: Winner & Losers in a G-Zero World.

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Gold, oil, copper and a host of other commodities were heading lower Monday morning, continuing a recent pattern that has some wondering if the commodity "super-cycle" has come to an end.

After falling 13% in 2011, the Dow Jones-UBS Commodity Index entered this week at its lowest level since September 2010 amid concern about slowing global growth hurting demand. In addition, the dollar has benefited from Europe's ongoing debt crisis, resulting in lower prices for hard assets, notably gold and silver.

More weakness is likely in the short-term, in part due to seasonal factors as well as the slowdown of the economy, says Frank Holmes, CEO and CIO of U.S. Global Investors. Crude, for example, could "easily" fall to as low as $80 mid-summer he says, predicting continued near-term weakness for gold as well.

But Holmes -- a long-time, long-term bull on resource assets -- says additional short-term weakness will prove to be a long-term buying opportunity