The Market On Friday

  Good morning. It is 66 degrees and cloudy here in the Upper Hudson Valley, the forecast predicts a cloudy day with temperatures in the high 70s this afternoon. A lot of the focus of the news media right now is on the upcoming debate. One thing we can count on is that the event will be unorthodox in its nature. We do expect Trump to be compellingly ugly. If you get a chance, watch the 'Between Two Ferns' video I posted on Thursday. I think it's a riot, others might not agree so much. Regardless, it's an opportunity to see Clinton in a slightly different context, but I must admit she is a reserved person, and she is conscious of her expressions and actions. Clinton is very intelligent and she is also very aware, she has a high degree of self awareness. She works hard at attempting to speak with caution, but she does screw that up now and again as we know. Trump on the other hand has virtually no self censoring devices, which apparently is appealing to many. They say he speaks his mind, I say he's a boorish individual. I mean let's face it, anybody can say crude things, what exactly is the trick there. I find it a major flaw in his character, one of many actually.

  At 9:15 a.m. ET futures are almost flat and the price of oil per barrel is down, now trading around $46. The market is poised to open in the flat area.

  Oil is on investors' minds as there is an upcoming OPEC meeting next week. Allegedly the OPEC people will discuss the idea of a production freeze, which, if it happened, would send oil up probably around another, oh I don't know, perhaps as much as $5 to $15 almost instantly. Let's say it would definitely solidify the $50 trading range. But, that won't happen. OPEC meetings are also allegedly a pointless activity. Expect the meeting to fall apart with many disagreements. So look for oil to drop to around $40 by next Friday, this is all pure poppycock speculation on my part.

CNN: Stocks and oil lower; Fed members speak; Yahoo sinks by Alanna Petroff

Oil prices and stocks have been closely correlated over the last year or so. And oil is moving based on expectations about what may happen at an OPEC meeting in Algeria next week. Oil producers are talking again about whether to freeze production.