December E-mini S&Ps (ESZ14 -0.38%) this morning are down another -0.47% as concerns continue about slowing world economic growth.

The 2014 Q3 earnings season takes center stage next week with Alcoa’s release after the close on Wednesday.

September E-mini S&Ps (ESU14 +0.31%) this morning are up +0.24% on optimism that this morning's ADP employment report will show solid gains in employment last month, while European stocks are little changed ahead of the results of today's ECB meeting.

A basic investment concept is to that high quality stocks fare better in down markets than low quality stocks, and therefore in late stages of a Bull market with generally fully valued stocks, tilting equity allocations toward high quality is prudent.

Very good companies are not hard to identify. They sport excellent long-term growth in easily measurable business metrics.

These early earnings results are clearly showing, we can no longer blame the terrible weather from this past winter as the reason for retailers reporting terrible results. They are doing so because the consumer is feeling the pressure from the excessive debt that they piled up over the last 5 years