The Market On Monday

  Good morning. It is 64 degrees and a little breezy here in Upstate NY. I hope you had a good weekend, the weather here was pretty spring-like. I was out jogging a preserve trail on Saturday and it felt great, t-shirt weather. The grass is greening up and the early spring flowers are out. We might even see the forsythia with its yellowness soon bloom.

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

  Markets were rattled last week especially with poor earnings reports from a few TBTF banks. Let me reiterate a point. When the equities market is rising in value it has little to do with Main Street America, yet when the markets drop, it does effect Main Street. That is as far as I can tell a realistic appraisal of 'Trickle Down.' What trickles down is disaster. Regardless, the week will be about first quarter corporate reports as investors see first hand if the Great Recession Recovery is petering out, possibly just having a poor single cycle, or might even be better than expected if results improve.

CNN: Stocks: Fear, uncertainty and earnings

All eyes will be focused this morning on Citigroup...

Russian stocks and the ruble dropped as the continuing strife between Russia and Ukraine ramped up to a fever pitch.