The Market On Tuesday

Good morning. It is 28 degrees and cloudy moving to clear here in Upstate NY. Many people including yours truly did not work on Monday. We extended the holiday weekend and we regret that its over. Now its back to the grind. I always like this in between week. Nobody expects a whole lot to get done, its kind of a cultural give a way as it were. Earlier I was out walking the new dog, who I might add we have nicknamed 'the perfect puppy'. She has an amazing ability to dive onto somebody's lawn, where the lawn meets the street, find and then start chewing on some god awful object - a plastic bottle cap, a packet of ketchup, a styrofoam coffee cup, and most recently a dead squirrel. Yes, we are working on the 'give' command, but she really didn't want to give up the squirrel. Eventually we got it away from her. Poor squirrel though, what an ignominious end.

At 7:55 a.m. futures are flat, the dollar is down, and oil is back up over $100.

Like the rest of our society, one suspects that not a whole lot will get done in the markets this week - mercifully I might add. Many investors have put the last comma and period in the ledger for the year. Still the big question will be whether or the not the indexes will end in the black or red for the year. I'll go with black, what the hell.

Notice how Sears/K Mart is about to go down the tubes with the parent company Sears Holding about to shut down over 100 stores due to poor holiday sales. Come to think of it, the last time I was at a Sears was probably 2 decades ago. Yeah, I guess I'm not helping here am I.

One of my favorite data metrics, consumer confidence, re-arises today. Exactly how confident are all you ingrates anyhow? I'm not too confident, but I am definitely more content, go figure.

CNN: Stocks: Economy in focus

After the market open, a report on consumer confidence will be released...


Case-Shiller home prices for October are set for release ahead of the opening bell.


Sears...will...close 100 to 120 Sears and Kmart stores.


Oil for February delivery rose 38 cents to $100.03 a barrel.