The Market On Thursday

  Good morning. It is 64 degrees and hazy sunny here in the Upper Hudson Valley. The weather logos are predicting sunshine right through the weekend. My favorite news story this morning comes from CNN - NASA: 'Close' to finding life on planets. Hopefully we can manage to hang around another 20 years and see what they dig up.

  At 8:00 a.m. ET futures are moderately lower and the price of oil per barrel is up. The market is poised to open lower although some energy stocks might rally.

  The DOW is presently at the record high of 17,138 after Wednesday's trading. The morning's session looks like it will begin with a pullback and this appears to be based on global economic news. The U.S. is imposing new economic sanctions on Russia over the Ukraine and this is allegedly the cause of the morning's pullback. Meanwhile earnings season continues and the initial results indicate that investors view these results favorably.

CNN: Stocks: 4 things to know before the open

Russian stocks fell by nearly 3%, and the ruble slipped against the dollar, after the U.S. announced new sanctions related to the crisis in Ukraine.