With 90 minutes before the start of a new week of trading in the U.S. markets – futures are pointing to a slightly lower open despite uncertainty whether the U.S. Federal Reserve will being tapering its $85 billion asset buying program.

As of 8:15 a.m. the Dow Jones Industrial Average is at -8.00 or -0.05% gain, S&P 500 is at -1.85 or -1.75% and the tech heavy NASDAQ is higher by 0.25 or 0.01%.

Monday and Tuesday are void of any market moving economic data releases setting the focus on the FOMC July Policy meeting’s minutes.

Market participants will be watching for any hint in the minutes for indications on when the Fed will begin its tapering process. Expectations are for the Fed to begin tapering as soon as next month but analysts that were so certain that the Fed would begin tapering are now beginning to weigh.

Speculation for taper was ramped up last week when weekly jobless claims dropped to nearly a 6 year low and now with no economic data to speak of for the next two days sentiment seems to be shifting.

However, on the flip side poor earnings announcements in the retail sector such as Wal-Mart (WMT, quote) and its $680 million dollar drop in sales in Q2 sent shares lower on Friday with the company indicating the loss came from a stronger dollar.  However, this morning we are finding share higher cutting the Friday’s loss in half, possibly suggesting the market is pricing in a continuation of the Fed’s $85 billion stimulus.

This morning we find the following stocks actively moving –

Supernus Pharmaceuticals (SUPN, quote)

Barclays Bank Plc Ipath S&P 500 Vix Short Term (VXX, quote)

Anglogold Ashanti Limited (AU, quote)

Statoil (STO, quote)