What would make me more optimistic is if there was evidence that money on the sidelines is being put to work. But I'm not convinced.

A new Fed chairman is an unknown and as such offers nervous investors an excuse to sell.

There's this almost universal sense that we're in this big cap-ex spending cycle and the big stocks should be moving on that, but they haven't been.

Neither bulls nor bears seem to be making any headway, unless you look at the Dow.

Longer term I'm bearish, but I'm pretty optimistic for next week.

Unless we get a negative surprise on a piece of economic data that's really out of the ordinary, then it's going to be a subdued week with the Fed meeting right around the corner.