It’s not even the opening yet and the S&P futures have already had a 15 point range from its open last night. Asian stocks got hit hard due to political uncertainty in Japan, word of North Korea’s leader turning ill (no pun intended) and possibly a push out to 2010 an economic agreement between Taiwan and China. Europe opened lower in response but has been rallying ever since. A GS upgrade ahead of earnings tomorrow also helped to lift financials. An ECB member Bonello thinks the economy is bottoming but a “return to potential growth rates is clearly going to be slow.” He also thinks inflation will turn positive in the fall and that risks of deflation are rather limited. With no economic data and it being a Monday during the summer, today’s action will be noise ahead of a big earnings week highlighted by INTC, JNJ, GS, GOOG, JPM, IBM, BoA, C, and GE and also important economic data reports beginning tomorrow.
