Before the Open (Jan 25)

Good morning. Happy Monday. Hope you had a nice weekend.
Coming off a huge down week, the Asian/Pacific markets closed down across the board but losses were minimal. Europe is currently mixed – there are no standout winners or losers. Futures here in the States suggest a moderate gap up open for the cash market.
The charts mean less heading into this week than they did last week because so much emotion was involved in last week’s selling. Selling forced more selling which forced more selling. Support levels didn’t mean much; the market wasn’t going to stop dropping until the closing bell rang Friday. Now it’s a new week, traders have had a chance to regroup and reassess the situation and decide if last week’s selling was a knee-jerk reaction to some news items or deserved.
The charts of individual stocks are a total mess. There are very few good long set ups and in most cases, shorts are too far gone to chase. A couple days are needed for the charts to reset. I’m sure the bulls got scared at the end of last week – it’s happened a handful of times the last 10 months, and the bears are once again excited – but they’ve incorrectly picked a top too many times to count, so it’s not like their analysis can be trusted.
Here’s the daily SPX. Sure I could draw a few lines and say: “that’s support,” but emotions and momentum are more important. More after the open.

headlines at Yahoo Finance
today’s upgrades/downgrades
this week’s Earnings Reports
this week’s Economic Numbers