The Market On Monday

  Good morning. It is 51 degrees and cloudy here in Upstate NY on this fine Monday morning. The logos are predicting a lot of rain for the week. Right now it's looking rather lush out there, the green-ness of things is very strong. Everybody's lawn is emerald green and the grass is growing quickly. We cut the lawn for a second time in less than a week on Saturday. I hope you had a good weekend. The high point of mine was a long trail run. My recovery from surgery in December is moving along nicely and I am much closer to the old self as it were - physically speaking.

  At 8:30 a.m. ET futures are slightly lower and the price of oil per barrel is up. The market is poised to open lower.

  There is some major merger news grabbing a lot of attention this morning. Recall that the market is in record high territory. The irony is that this is a fear causing area for a different set of reasons than when the market is tanking as in 2008. It's a matter of, well now what do we do. Can there be a justification for further gains or is another correction coming. I have no idea, but change is always in the air.

CNN: Stocks: Reacting to mega merger news

...AT&T announced it was taking over DirecTV, and AstraZeneca rejected Pfizer's attempts to complete a mega-deal.

There's not much in terms of economic and earnings announcements on the docket Monday.