The Market On Thursday

  Good morning. It is 43 degrees and sunny here in Upstate NY. Rather chilly out there this morning during my early hours walk. I had on the sweater, the fleece jacket, and the hat, shorts no longer seem like a choice option. The first day of Fall occurs on Saturday, keep that in mind. The Romney fallout continues. Meeting with some friends last night, the discussion fell back to Romney's ill advised but from the heart statements surrounding the poor people in this country. Friends were saying that even intellectually challenged people were going to get the message of this one. I'm not so sure, I tend to doubt America's ability to add 1 plus 1. I suspect millions of people out there who Romney was pointing his finger at, will be voting for Romney. And that in a nutshell is how America not only likes, but loves to vote against its own interests.

  At 8:00 a.m. futures are modestly lower, the dollar is mostly up against major world currencies, and the price of oil is down per barrel. The market is poised to open lower.

  Investors are more than concerned about data that indicates an economic contraction occurring in American love child China and grand parent Europe. Is this something new? No, this has been in the air for some time and the notion that the global economy is in for a contraction has been weighing for some time now. After all, with the economic mess heaping up in the eurozone, what else is going to possibly happen but contraction.

  Notice that the indexes have started to get up over the peak of the hill. Is this the start of something big, well that's impossible to tell. But with the DOW approaching record levels and the economic footing not quite in the robust booming zone, the bull could be running out of steam.

CNN: Stocks: Global slowdown weighs on sentiment

... report on Chinese manufacturing...showed that manufacturing in the world's second largest economy ticked up slightly in September but still contracted.

...in Europe, where Markit's regional purchasing managers index fell to a 39-month low. It showed the fastest contraction of new business and services in more than three years...