The Market On Wednesday

  Good morning. It is 66 degrees and overcast here in the Upper Hudson Valley. Rain is expected today. We see that ISIS has beheaded an American journalist. We mourn this atrocious loss and brutal act. Talk about a motivating factor to get the US back into bombing this group into oblivion. Yikes. Beheading, this is a very common brutality in that part of the world. It's completely barbaric. We have little understanding for this, it simply points to the worst aspect of humanity once again.

  At 8:50 a.m. ET futures are slightly lower and the price of oil per barrel is up. The market is poised to open lower.

  Notice that the price of oil per barrel is surprisingly low. That will not remain, expect it to rise. The big news of course is an announcement from the Fed later this afternoon. This has to do with interest rates and maybe a little on quantitative easing. Regardless, from the Wall Street point of view this is a huge. Markets will probably respond to the data, one way or the other.

CNN: Stocks: 4 things to know before the open

The U.S. Federal Reserve will release minutes from its July meeting at 2 p.m. ET.