The Market On Friday

  Good morning. It is 62 degrees and cloudy here in Upstate NY. The forecast is indicating sunshine and clouds. Perusing the morning news we see that brain eating amoeba and the threat of a strike on Syria as announced by Kerry are right up there in the headlines. Any need to wonder why people might be feeling a little bit stressed. Last night I watched 'Tent City, USA' which is a documentary about an actual tent city for homeless people in Tennessee. That state has its share of the homeless and then some. These people are getting on in their lives with next to nothing, the air of depression hovers over the tent city like a fog, and it's the hope of a better future that seems to create enough momentum to keep life within a workable range. It's a good documentary, I recommend it.

  At 8:20 a.m. ET futures are flat and the price of oil per barrel is down. The market is poised to open flat to slightly lower.

  It is the fear of the termination of quantitative easing more than anything else that re-arises and strikes fear into the heart of the market. The Fed's bond buying program has helped inflate the value of equities to record highs and that is a hard thing to let go of. The main fear is that the value of equities will deflate when the program stops and eventually, it will stop. Notice that Twitter is looking into an IPO. Social media networks are doing well right now in the marketplace. Personally I'm finding the entire social networking system to be less and less appealing.

CNN: Investors wait for the Fed's next move

...Twitter's IPO filing comes at a time when social media stocks are red hot.

...U.S. Census Bureau's monthly retail sales report at 8:30 a.m.