The Market On Tuesday

  Good morning. It is 39 degrees and sunny here in the Upper Hudson Valley, the forecast predicts a sunny day with temperatures only in the high 40s this afternoon. The temperatures are dropping day by day, we are into the crispy part of the Fall. Well, two weeks to go before this very ugly and miserable presidential campaign comes to an equally miserable close. As we know Mr. Trump has taken it upon himself to add a dimension to the election cycle that America has never seen before, and it's not in the least bit pretty or appealing. A quick scan of the polls this morning shows that Clinton is maintaining her lead over Trump and not a lot has shifted in the polls over the last few days. The NY Times for example is still showing her with a 97% chance of winning, this is the number we've seen at The NY Times for the better part of the last week. I literally pray that number holds and that the electorate favors Clinton and strongly rejects Trump although I have suspected that the polls might tighten once again. It is also possible that her lead could increase, we shall indeed see.

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

  Busy times on Wall Street as a deluge of third quarter corporate reports come through the pipeline. Notice that the value of the pound is down about 20% since the Brexit vote, and recall that this is what Trump wants for the USA. The German economy is cranking away which directly reflects positively on the E.U. in general. At present, it looks like clear sailing.

CNN: Earnings deluge; Apple of my eye; Twitter in focus by Alanna Petroff

The S&P Case-Shiller Home Price Index for August is due at 9 a.m. ET, giving insight into the state of the U.S. real estate market.

The U.S. Conference Board is releasing its October consumer confidence report at 10 a.m.