The Market On Friday

  Good morning. It is 47 degrees and very sunny here in the Upper Hudson Valley. The weather logo is predicting lots of sunshine and cooler temperatures in the high 40s today. Every single morning this week has offered a surprise from the point of view of some new craziness in the world. This morning does not disappoint. Now it's over to Mali where gunman are holding people hostage in a hotel. Apparently American special forces are on hand as well. This has been one helluva week. The world is going through a major conniption and unfortunately the lines of craziness are being drawn deeper and further apart. I have to say that I have been more than shocked by the rhetoric coming out of the right this week. The bar has gotten lowered, and who thought that was even possible.

  At 9:00 a.m. ET futures are moderately higher and the price of oil per barrel is down. The market is poised to open higher.

  The standoff in Mali this morning has captured everyone's attention and that would include Wall Street. Wall Street generally has remained buoyant through the week. Notice that AIDS drug profiteer Martin Shkreli has purchased KaloBios which has several cancer drugs in development. That company's stock has shot up over 400% with news of the purchase. What does that tell you? The quick answer is that Wall Street is very happy to make gobs of profit on the backs of the terminally ill. And what does that tell you?

CNN:Stocks: 5 things to know before the open

... a picture of weak growth and almost zero inflation in the eurozone.

Gunmen have taken 170 people hostage inside the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, the capital of the former French colony in west Africa.