The Market On Monday

Good morning. It is 56 degrees and sunny here in Upstate NY. Irene left us a mess. There is much flooding in the area. The Hudson River is expected to start surging higher causing authorities to mandate evacuations to residents in houses close to the water. Hopefully power will be restored to my area. We are running on a generator. The sound of generators is in the air, its noisy, but it beats a basement with several feet of water and that's the truth. I estimate that right now the sump pump is seeing about a gallon of water every minute. Do the math, without the sump pump running we are in trouble. Eventually the sun will dry out the ground which at present is super saturated with water.

At 8:10 a.m. futures are significantly higher, the dollar is mixed, and oil is slightly higher.

All are relieved to see that the hurricane was not the worst case scenario. There is damage but it could have been much worse. This fact is playing well on Wall Street for now.

After that euphoria wears off, investors will be facing the same series of economic issues that have plagued us for quite some time. The big deal for this week will be government numbers on employment in August, which will be released on Friday. Hey, maybe some kind of miracle happened and corporate America hired millions of people.

Yea, that didn't happen...

CNN: Stocks headed for early gains

Investors will also remain focused on Europe's ongoing debt problems, while bracing for the all-important monthly jobs report due on Friday.


Pending home sales figures for June are slated to come in after the open...


Oil for October deliver added 58 cents to $85.95 a barrel.