What news we have seen this morning has been mostly positive with one troubling major exception: an abysmally weak German Industrial production (DEC) that was estimated to come in up 0.6% on the month instead of an actual -2.6% (and -7.1% on the year as well.) Yet, the question remains whether positive figures make any difference a current environment where broader concerns about credit pervade everything from global sovereign debt dilemmas to the real sense of well-being of consumers, especially those in the US who are impacted by continued weakness in housing.

…important right now are key near-term resistances, such as DJIA failed support in the 10,300-10,230 range, March S&P 500 future just missing previously important 1,102-08 on its recovery back above 1,080-75, and weak sister March NASDAQ 100 future squeezing back above its critical 1,782 yesterday only to drop right back below it yesterday morning. And in fact, due to the S&P 500 future being the more balanced trend indication between the resilient DJIA and abysmally weak NASDAQ 100 future,

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Equities failing to push above key resistances and Tolerances reviewed once again in this morning's TrendView BRIEF UPDATE (http://bit.ly/dn0BFj) (and its link to the previous analysis in Wednesday's GENERAL UPDATE) reinforces the bearish trend… with BLS annual benchmark revision to the Current Employment Statistics (of regular monthly US Employment reports) was over an additional 1.4 million jobs lost against a preliminary number of minus 824,000,…

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▪ Whatever else might transpire, they probably can apply a little bit of monetary magic in the form of guarantees for Greek short-term paper market to ensure near-term availability of liquidity that will provide a window (1 year?) for Greece to apply a broader fiscal fix. However much that also alleviates the near-term crisis atmosphere for the other European Monetary Union members with fiscal problems, it will leave some significant hostages to fortune.

▪ On the other hand, what all that meant to the markets was glaringly apparent Friday, as the initial rumors of some sort of address of fiscal problems on Europe's periphery was enough to foment a sharp equities rally, and some softening of bonds and the US dollar. Yet, that very market reaction only reinforces the importance of the technical picture as a guide to trend evolution whatever the fundamentals of the moment might be.

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▪ While that could be seen as a typical acerbic Rohr observation on government being mostly part of the problem instead of a solution, in this case it makes sense. That is due to the degree to which a lack of meetings on various issues will defer partisan acrimony. As we have noted previous, there is no real basis for anything more than temporary agreement to review current efforts on healthcare and energy reform, as the Republicans rightfully still see advantage in opposing the bulk of Mr. Obama's programs…

▪ And now back to the current important changes in this week's schedule. While that includes the cancellation of testimony from the Fed's Mr. Tarullo on Systemic Risk and Philadelphia Fed's Plosser speaking on the Financial Crisis, the most telling is moving the release of US Advance Retail Sales (JAN) from tomorrow out into Friday morning. And as we will demonstrate shortly, there many reasons why that sort of focus on consumer activity remains a key for our general assessment of the economy and the equity markets, and ultimately their influence back into the other asset classes. However, before we begin that extensive review of fundamental influences a brief revisit to the technical aspects is in order. And on balance those continue to remain very much in tune with last Thursday's TrendView GENERAL UPDATE, and we will stick to the critical highlights here.

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▪ Yesterday's Weekly Overview noted the dimensions of the problems that face the equities have at least as much (and possibly more so) to do with the general global consumer sentiment; and especially that of suddenly frugal consumers in the US. The further influence on those consumers will arrive shortly in the form of the Weekly US Initial Jobless Claims. It will be interesting to see whether they fall back toward the 450,000 that the economic and equity market optimists have been hoping for, or remains stubbornly high again. It is obvious that the support to address the Greek fiscal crisis being in the form of a loan is of only nominal benefit to equity markets. Which is only rightful, as it only pushes the problem down the road,…

▪ And insofar as the crux of the matter will still be whether or the burdened economies can still generate some growth to assist address of the fiscal problems, or whether they will fall into a contraction trap. And a lot of that will still have to do with the activity of the major developed economies consumers. Unfortunately they've become more defensive.

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