David Fry's  Instablog

The Germans threw a monkey wrench into the EU "fix" once again asserting that Sunday's deadline for a credible plan wasn't certain. This led to a sharp decline in stock prices since the "idea" that a plan was going to be implemented was priced-in with last week's short squeeze. Friday after the close of trading it was announced that the U.S., in addition to other members, were not willing to use the IMF for any EU rescue with $350 billion. That was a blow to EU forces hoping someone else would bailout them out of their troubles. Add to this the often reliable short-term overbought McClellan Oscillator and it was likely we might sell-off anyway.

The poor Empire State Manufacturing Survey (-8.48 vs consensus -3.25 and prior -8.82) didn't help matters for bulls Monday. Meanwhile Citigroup (C) beat expectations due to an accounting adjustment and Wells Fargo (WFC) missed expectations causing financials to fall into the red. Much watched Goldman Sachs (GS) and Bank of America (BAC) will report earnings Tuesday. On a related matter, and without much surprise, HFTs (High Frequency Traders) are now the dominant force in program trading volume on the NYSE as outlined in this report.