The Market On Monday

  Good morning. It is 28 degrees and lightly snowing here in the Upper Hudson Valley. It looks like we are in for a burst of extreme cold tonight and tomorrow but then it will get a little warmer. I hope you had a good weekend. I deliberately tried to stay away from the normal harsh news yesterday, and the intent is to make that the norm for Sunday. As we know the news is usually bleak, it's always bleak.

  At 8:45 a.m. ET futures are moderately higher and the price of oil per barrel is down. The market will open higher and yet again energy equities will take it on the chin.

  Oil continues to get cheaper now floating close to $45 a barrel. The pressure is on more and more for fringe oil companies to stop production as this price per barrel does not even support production costs let alone a profit. Of course this is the intent, as the oil war continues. Today marks the beginning of earnings reports for the fourth quarter of 2014. It will be interesting to see how the price of oil has affected the reports.

CNN: Stocks: 5 things to know before the open

This week sees the start of earnings season, when a deluge of quarterly reports hit the market. A key company reporting earnings Monday is Alcoa.