It’s looking like another ugly session for the bulls. I can’t say it any better than David at the WSJ MarketBeat blog:

It looks like another bleak morning, although yesterday’s turnaround leaves hope for the optimists everywhere. Like many of the other recent selloffs, more than one catalyst has emerged for the gloominess – more news of write-downs, this time from Wachovia, along with a full-scale rout of the dollar.

Wachovia will be writing down $1.1 billion in CDO-related losses just from October alone, and the jitters were compounded by rumors — later denied — of significant losses from Barclays Bank, which had the effect of causing a downturn in European markets.

“An already nervous market is on red alert for any mention of credit losses and this rumour has proved particularly unnerving at the end of a very difficult and volatile trading week,” writes Martin Slaney, head of spread betting at GFT Global Markets, in London.

It’s tough for me to imagine many folks wanting to get long ahead of the weekend in the face of more bad banking news. But who knows, maybe some shorts will decide to snatch their profits & run today.

P.S. Don’t forget to get your chart requests in for this weekend’s chart fest…

On Today’s Calendar:

  • 10:00 — Mich Sentiment-Prel.

More Calendars: U.S. Earnings | Conf. Calls | Surprises | IPO | Economic

Potential swing trades:

See one of the recent ‘Chart Reading‘ posts for some potential swing candidates.

Potential day trades:

(From Briefing.com)

Gapping Down

On weak earnings/guidance: MDRX -28.5% (multiple downgrades following earnings), JASO -19.0%, JSDA -18.4%, GMKT -12.6%, IART -9.5%, MRVC -7.6%, QCOM -6.7%… U.S. Financials seeing moderate pressure this morning after WB commented on impact of market volatility on its financial results, saying it expects to increase their allowance for loan losses in the fourth quarter of 2007: WB -4.4%, LEH -3.8%, GS -3.3%, BSC -2.6%, JPM -2.6%, C -2.6%, WFC -1.5%… European banks under pressure after BCS fell on rumor of a writedown; BCS reportedly denied the rumor: BCS -6.3%, RBS -6.1%, ING -3.6%, UBS -3.4%… Solar names seeing profit-taking as JASO drops 19% following earnings: YGE -8.0%, TSL -6.2%, ESLR -4.3%, LMC -4.8%, STP -3.1%… Other news: CLWR -29.0% (Sprint Nextel and CLWR terminate WiMAX letter of intent), LEAP -29.4% (co announces restatement of prior period results), NDAQ -8.2% (co announces Hellman & Friedman Capital, H&F Executive Fund and H&F Entities sold ~23.5 mln shares), ALVR -4.9% (WiMax name gapping down in sympathy with CLWR).

Gapping Up

On strong earnings/guidance: PCLN +14.5%, PWRD +10.0%, CTIC +7.9%, PCR +7.4%, NVDA +3.6%, DLB +3.6%… Other news: RTP +8.5% (strength attributed to rumor of counterbid and delay of “2.10 rule”), AMAT +5.1% (upgraded at JP Morgan and Citigroup), SCON +4.8% (signs definitive agreement for joint venture with Hunchun BaoLi Communications), SNP +4.5% (upgraded to Buy from Neutral at Goldman - CNN.com), MRK +3.0%% (enters $4.85 bln agreement to resolve U.S. VIOXX product liability lawsuit), AMT +2.9% (to replace Alltel (AT) in the S&P 500), BRCM +1.3% (upgraded to Neutral at Amtech).

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