In Europe this morning at 7:46am, there is widespread selling. The UK FTSE is down -1.87% to 5303, the French CAC -1.23% to 4274, and the German DAX -1.28% to 6343.

Crude Oil futures are up +$0.22/bbl to 132.04.

Gold, palladium, platinum and silver spot prices are all up, marginally, presently at: 974.38, 417.5, 1874, and 18.61, respectively.

The Euro is a bit stronger at 1.5886.

DJIA futures, which had been down over -100, are presently (7:55am ET) down -94 at 11371.

Comments & Outlook

Volume is weak and the electronic brokers are soft. Yesterday, it was OXPS -5.2% and IBKR -4.5%, which were the two weakest stocks of the Cara 100 companies. This morning SCHW is getting hit.

The feeling here is that as the banks and broker-dealers leave uncertainty in the market as to their real earnings (ie, losses in many cases), traders will hold off making decisions. In fact it is a good time to be in cash and go on vacation. This situation is likely to adversely impact the electronic brokers.

The other observation I have today is that the consumer electronics (mp3 sales) and auto manufacturer share prices are down –see Apple’s iPod—which is due to June sales, which had been signaled to me by the recent crushing in SNDK (especially) and INTC stocks, which are the companies that make the chips that fill those products.

Now we are starting to see the impact on companies like American Express, and Apple.

This is not a good time to be chasing stocks. When I mention that you ought to be watching a relatively small number of stocks of quality companies (for potential purchases at their cycle bottoms), you also have to be generally aware of the business environment these companies are operating in and share prices can best tell you that. Macro-economic data is lagging, and is based on estimates and surveys, which is also not often helpful other than as a confirmation of the price trends and cycles you see in the market.