Good morning. If you had watched TV or hunted around on the popular news sites, you probably would have gone home Friday afternoon thinking that profit taking was the key to the day's triple digit decline. However, as we discussed on Wednesday, I'm of the mind that stocks don't make big moves without a good reason. And since we had seen a decent reversal higher on Thursday, the idea that a journalistic catch phrase suddenly cropped up out of nowhere and became the reason for the dive didn't make much sense.

No, after doing some digging, it appears it was worry about the state of the economic recovery that was the focus on Friday. Union Pacific's CEO got things rolling when he said that he expects the economy to "limp along" until unemployment begins to ease. And while one bad apple usually doesn't spoil the whole bunch, it didn't help that Burlington Northern talked about rising costs and problems with pricing as the reason the company lowered its expectations for the fourth quarter. And since the rails are generally viewed as a good indicator of economic activity, traders appeared to have trouble getting the phrase "limping along" out of their minds on Friday.

Speaking of economies limping along, it didn't help that we got word the GDP in the U.K. continued to contract during the third quarter. In a report that was described as "shocking" the United Kingdom's gross domestic product contracted by -0.4% in the third quarter. Most economists had expected the U.K. to follow the U.S. and emerge from recession. However with the data showing a sixth straight quarterly decline, this is now the longest recession on record.

And while we're talking economics and dour forecasts, the fact that the National Retail Federation forecast a 1.0% decline in holiday sales this year didn't help the mood of the market. The forecast was below the 10-year average sales growth of 3.4%. And in a survey about holiday shopping plans; consumers said they expect to spend 3.2% less than last year, with two-thirds of respondents saying the economy would affect their plans.

There was some good news on the economic front as existing home sales rebounded nicely with a pop of +9.4% in September, marking the fifth increase in sales in the last six months. But, the bears were able to spin this as a negative too by pointing out that the surge in activity was likely tied more to the coming expiration of the first-time home buyer tax credit than improving demand.

Moving away from economics for just a moment, the bears were also treated to some lousy earnings guidance in the semiconductor space with Broadcom (BRCM) and MEMC Electronic Materials (WFR) getting blamed for most of the selling.

Then when you toss in the afternoon rumor that Bank of America (BAC) is working on a large secondary offering (never a good thing, but especially not now) and the worry that "this might be it" in terms of earnings that come in ahead of expectations for a while, it is little wonder that traders leaned on the sell button all afternoon.

So, the bears will argue that a market that focuses on a batch of negatives which were actually pretty hard to dig up instead of the boffo numbers out of Microsoft (MSFT) isn't in great shape. But then again, in light of the fact that this market has little memory from one day to the next, we're not going to get too concerned just yet.

Turning to this morning, we'll get the Chicago Fed National Activity Index for September this morning and then the Dallas Fed National Manufacturing Activity Index for October at 10:30.

Running through the rest of the pre-game indicators, the foreign markets are mostly higher. Crude futures are moving down with the latest quote showing oil trading lower by $0.26 to $80.24. On the interest rate front, we've got the yield on the 10-yr trading at 3.49%, while the yield on the 3-month T-Bill is currently at 0.05%. And finally, with about 45 minutes before the bell, stock futures in the U.S. are pointing to a slightly higher open. The Dow futures are currently ahead by about 30 points; the S&P's are up by about 5 points, while the NASDAQ looks to be about 11 points above fair value at the moment.

Wishing you all the best today and until next time, "may the bulls be with you!"