Futures are down some this morning as those companies reporting so far this morning have been pretty disappointing compared to the Goldman Sachs blowout last week (we're moving out of the quarterly reports of those companies that got lots of government money and into the ranks of those facing the economic travails on their own without the taxpayer largesse).
The opening is important because a lower open will confirm the reversal of the HANGING MAN Candlestick signal that I discussed last night. Yesterday's open was just shy of 852 - an open below that, and a down day, will indicate the start of a downtrend.
To top things off, todays market action coincides wth the occurence of the longest solar eclipse of the century (only visible in Asia, sorry).
I'm much more interested in technical analysis and chart patterns than astrology, but there's plenty o'folks, some very succsessful, such as the famous W.D. Gann, who believe that there is a direct connection, and that many key market reversals directly coincide with eclipses. Do a search on "teh Google" and you'll find plenty of hits discussing this. (Did you know that last Sept. 15, the day that Lehman Bros. went down and took the market with it, causing the Big Panic, was also the day of a lunar eclipse?)
I'm not sure that I believe that stuff, but, the fact of the matter is that we have 2 strong reversal patterns setting up and staring us in the face, today's the potential trigger day, and it just happens to be the day of a big solar eclipse. (cue spooky music)
Forewarned is forearmed, as they say. Absent an up day today, I wouldn't own anything long going forward from here until I see how this plays out.