The only thing that was positive today was that there was nothing negative, especially no lousy economic reports that we've had over the last four trading days. The summer doldrums have not appeared so far.

The weakness from Friday carried forward to the international markets and we could get a horrific open here today. The concerns stem from the rising rates structure and what we got on Friday was something of a good news, bad news syndrome.

Rising long rates threaten the bellwether housing industry as well as consumer spending. The higher [bond] returns begin to compete with stocks for institutional affection.

The bottom line is really the bottom line [on income statements] in the stock market and earnings just don't look good. The jobs data wasn't terrible but the economy has run into a wall. Basically, there's nothing to churn the market to the upside. And another 800-pound gorilla in the room is Iraq.

I think the market has done quite well in what is supposed to be the worst month of the year, but at some point you're going to run into an overbought condition.

The highest bid always won.