The U.S. stock market isn't as volatile Fridayand the Standard & Poor's 500 earlier "bounced off some support area" of 1128-1131, said Art Cashin, UBS Financial Services' director of floor operations.
"There is a little [trading] band there and we did it twice, so that’s giving us a little respite here," he told CNBC.
Another factor: calm, for now, in Europe. "The terror in Europe stopped, amid rumors there might be weekend meetings and things getting solved," Cashin said.
"Europe is going to continue to drive this bus and we should be worried about any new things there."
And the bus driver is Germany, which he said is "damned if they do and damned if they don’t. It’s now almost solely up to Germany to bear the full financial burden for the European bailout. That’s a very expensive proposition."
"If they fail to do it and the euro zone disintegrates, then they will be stuck with the Deutche mark again, which will go up and kill their export business. So either side of this problem is going to be tough on their economy."