The market is concerned with the housing numbers. There seems to be a trend setting in. Housing and the consumer have been the engines of the economy and if that's slowing or fading quickly, there are going to be ramifications for the market.

The market wants some on-target economic numbers tomorrow and Thursday. We want an equilibrium in the economy. If the numbers are too strong or weak, the interest rate debate would rage on. The numbers need to show moderation.

You've got a push-pull between tragedy and the good that can come out of it for the markets. You've got to rebuild, and you're going to put money and resources into that and create jobs.

You've got oil up, and it continues to go higher. Where the Fed kind of has said that they are closer to the end than the beginning of tightening, they're going to probably have to deal with inflation stemming from energy, and they could have to tighten longer.

There was a sense that a year-end rally would take us higher, but there's some concern from the bond market flattening. The inverting of the yield curve would bring us more problems in 2006. We also have light volume, exaggerating moves to both sides.

The news today so far has been quite poor to say the least. You've got oil up, and it continues to go higher. The ISM manufacturing came out softer than expected. And Wal-Mart wasn't great.

It shows you the importance of interest rates and what the Fed thinks. This gives us hope that the Fed will be sensitive to the economy and we can get back to that nice 'Goldilocks' economy where growth is just right.

It's more of the same: uncertainty and energy, ... Throw in inflation and the possibility of slower growth because of the hurricane, and we're all out of sorts. There's no good news out there.

You're seeing a little bit of buying come in today, which you'd expect after a sell off. The market is looking at what happened Friday rationally, and now it's just a wait-and-see on how other bellwether companies do on their earnings.

There's not much players around. Buyers are mostly absent while there's a lot of tax-related selling going on.