The Market On Monday

Good morning. It is 67 degrees and sunny here in Upstate NY. I hope you had a good weekend. We had more of a social weekend with gatherings on Friday and Saturday night. Funny how it's feast or famine with gatherings, nothing will happen for weeks or months and then all of a sudden a grouping of invitations comes at the same time where you can't really make them all.

At 8:15 a.m. futures are slightly higher, the dollar is mostly down against major world currencies, and the price of oil is higher per barrel. The market is poised to open slightly higher.

The articles point to the same late summer pattern with low trading activity and not much in the way of economic news. This can only mean that there is a convocation of serious merde getting ready to hit the fan.

Investors are waiting to see what the Fed will determine from the point of view of the national economy. There will be another Fed meeting this week and each and every word that Fed Chair Bernanke will utter will be parsed for varying degrees of meaning and implication.

On another note, I beg you, literally beg you to take the time and read this article over at Common Dreams - Two Santa Clauses or How The Republican Party Has Conned America for Thirty Years. This is a very important article and will give you enough background information to understand the present economic pickle and what the two parties are struggling for. In truth it's now what 1 and 1/2 of the parties want versus what the other 1/2 want. The Democrats are no longer the party opposed to "Reaganomics", half of the party is "in the bag" the other half is in a bag drowning and fighting for it's life.

CNN: Stocks: Choppy trading ahead

Minutes from the Fed's last meeting released last week suggested that additional stimulus could come "fairly soon"...

...Bernanke reiterated that the Fed still has room to boost the economy if needed...

No U.S. economic reports are due out Monday.