This could prove to be one the most interesting market weeks of the year, assuming the market ever opens.  Talk about uncertainty!  Add Frankenstorm to the litany of other uncertainties such as the election and its impact on a functional Congress, Europe, Middle East, China, and Japan.

That’s been hard to figure lately.  Uncertainty has not eased.  Not in Europe.  Not in the Middle East. Not in China or Japan. Not in the U.S., with a dead-heat election battle and unknown future Congressional dynamics.  Companies overall continue to beat earnings, mostly, and miss on revenues.  Now there is a certainty: earnings cannot keep going up if revenues keep going down.

The coming week should reduce uncertainty, at least slightly, since we get a bevy of new economic data and 15% of the S&P 500 reports.  And maybe Spain will decide whether or not it needs help.  Furthermore, we will have the next-to-last Presidential debate tomorrow night. 

It is quite clear that the market wants good reports from the earnings announcements that begin this week. We make that judgment based on Friday’s weak close, despite a solid week of some of best economic news of the year that culminated with the drop in unemployment to 7.8% from the expected 8.2%.

Sabrient's chief market strategist, David Brown, was quoted in Myra P. Saefong's Market Snapshot article on Market Watch: Dow ends lower as focus shifts to earnings, Spain

"'Premarket bullishness' in equities, which had opened mostly higher, was 'likely due to expectations that Spain was ready to sign off on receiving bailout money as early as this weekend, but Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy denied that later in the day, reigniting investor concern about the region,' said David Brown, chief market strategist at Sabrient Systems. 'That state of uncertainty, of course, is exactly what the market hates.'"