The Market On Friday

  Good morning. It is 65 degrees and sunny here in Upstate NY. The prediction is for more rain right through the weekend. This is not the year of the brown crab grass. We see that world events are a little on the shaky side. In my opinion one of the stronger facts of the day is that it is now August. After August we get into the brr months as you know. How can we hold onto Summer.

  At 8:40 a.m. DOW futures are significantly lower and the price of oil per barrel is down. The market is poised to tank at the opening bell.

  What can we say, at least the weekend is almost here and the bloodletting can stop for two days. The indexes are in free fall allegedly due to global constraints. No need to rewrite the same things but the focus this morning seems to be about the fragility of the economies in countries surrounding Russia. Chalk today's losses up to Putin. One thing I read this morning that I cannot wrap my mind around is the fact that LinkedIn's shares are gaining. The company is growing. Seriously, what the hell does LinkenIn do anyhow? I thought it was just a waste of email space.

CNN: Stocks: 6 things to know before the open

European markets were tumbling, led by Germany's Dax, on concerns about the impact of escalating tensions with Russia on the region's fragile economy.