The Market On Monday

  Good morning. It is 27 degrees and overcast here in Upstate NY. We might even break above freezing today for the first time in a while. Cold as it is in this area, the Midwest is experiencing extreme cold and that will hang around out there for a while. January is a tough month and I always look forward to February where the return of more daylight is very noticeable. We will be moving the clocks ahead on March 9th this year. That's a mere 5+ weeks away.

  At 8:15 a.m. ET DOW futures are moderately higher and the price of oil per barrel is up. The market is poised to open higher.

  After a blisteringly bad week, the market is presently set to begin on an up note. It's the tapering down of quantitative easing and how that will effect the global economy that has investors pushing a sell off. I can't explain this morning except that perhaps it has to do with strong corporate fourth quarter earnings. One gets the sense that there is pressure on the market to contract and pressure to preserve the high perch of the major indexes. At this moment the preservation pressure is stronger.

CNN: Stocks: Clawing toward a positive start

"The prospect of the end of cheap money in the west, with the certainty of the end of even cheaper money in China, is forcing up the cost of capital across the [emerging markets] asset class."

...data on new home sales will be announced at 10 a.m. ET.