Google (GOOG) shares are higher this morning after Schwab Soundview made upbeat comments on the company and gave the shares a $180 price target. Now I suspect that everyone has their own view on this stock, but I want to point out comments Bernie made on August 20:

"Fearless forecast: The Wall Street analyst community will fall in love with Google shares before they ultimately top out. This is actually not a very bold prediction, as it happens time after time in these situations. They hated AOL stock after it went public, dismissing it as - you guessed it - "overvalued." And then they loved it at its peak when it merged with Time Warner (TWX) , after it had already appreciated 20-fold."

The shares were in the neighborhood of 105 at the time. This morning they are roughly 40 points higher. Point blank - insight like this is the reason it pays to listen to someone with as much experience as Bernie.

I hope this doesn't come across as meaningless promotion. I honestly want to highlight not the great call but the underlying reason and logic. I can not stress this enough that you need to be able to "understand" the Street if you want to beat them. According to this morning's data from Zacks, three of the 10 analysts rank the stock with a "buy" rating...

If you haven't heard, Fannie Mae (FNM) has delayed releasing its third quarter earnings...

Checking back on futures shows that the S&Ps are climbing (slightly) to a three point gain while gold jumps back and forth. Retail sales jumped 1.5 percent while the PPI rose 0.1 percent.

The news headlines are dominated by the Spitzer/MMC/AIG news that I discussed yesterday. I think I have made my thoughts clear on AIG so I won't belabor that point. Netflix (NFLX) is worth watching as it is indicated sharply lower after disappointing comments. Juniper Networks (JNPR) is also indicated lower after their earnings failed to impress.

P.S. Did anyone else notice the television commercials from over-the-counter drugs looking to take advantage of the Vioxx troubles? That didn't take long...

The September retail-sales report and producer price index were just released. I will grab the numbers in a minute but I wanted to note that stocks popped (a bit) on the news and gold dropped. S&P futures are up two points and gold is flat at 419...

I know that it is Limerick Friday, but my computer problems from last night have me feeling a bit out of the loop so I want to make sure I get back on the right page before playing.

The futures picture is fairly quiet this morning with the S&P's trading near fair value. Oil is trading down but remains above 54. Gold is up two points to 421.

For the record, the SPX dropped 10 points yesterday, while the other indices dropped by comparable amounts of nearly one percent. Given the current technical picture, I wouldn't call this constructive technical action. If you click back on my point to ponder chart from October first, you can see that this continues to play out. The bulls were lulled in and then the floor dropped out. This puts the SPX back in the downtrending channel.

The reason that I am rehashing it has to do with the reaction I am seeing. When I flipped on the television this morning I saw a strategist call for a spring time rally and recommended buying drug stocks. Regular readers of Schaeffer's Daily Contrarian have seen a common mantra emanate from that Street. That theme has been a fourth quarter rally that will commence once the election "jitters" have passed. With that time nearing, it would not surprise me to see this rally pushed out. Throughout the downtrend following the bubble peak, this was common practice. Rallies were always expected "soon" and investors were urged to buy and hold. I believe that I wrote about the topic at the time and will try to dig up some old commentaries to highlight what I mean.

Anyway, my point is that the market is creeping lower and no one seems to notice. By that I mean that the bulls are not giving in and continue to voice their opinions loud and proud. With the DJIA much closer to its annual low and its annual high, I am somewhat befuddled by this attitude.

Perhaps this is just a biased view. For now, I will step down from the soapbox and gather up the news I think we need to watch today...