The market is reacting to the rise in oil prices and the conflicting economic news.

I think what's going to be key going forward will be the tradeoff (in the economic news) between the statistics on employment and statistics on inflation.

There was a similar effect after the '70s oil shocks, but in recent decades we've gone back to gas guzzlers,

Those high oil prices are a burden on U.S. families, on firms' production costs. But the good news is that at least so far the U.S. economy has not been slowed by the high energy prices.

Oil prices are slipping, and that's generally good news for the market.

I think the record-high oil prices are still weighing on the market, ... Also, the Merck news is now spilling over to Pfizer, J&J and the blue chips.