Bear Market Mode

Good morning. Prepare yourself - this is going to be a difficult day.

Markets in Asia fell sharply, with Hong Kong plunging -5.4% and Japan dropping -3.4%. Indexes in South Korea, Australia, Taiwan and Shanghai all finished more than -2% lower and -1% declines were registered in Europe.

The CPI came in slightly higher than expected rising +0.3% while the core CPI rose +0.2%. Economists expected both CPI and core CPI to rise +0.2%. Year-over-year CPI was up +4.1% and core CPI was up 2.4%. Beyond that, investors are focused on Intel's (INTC)s disappointing report, extremely cautious outlook by the CEO of JPMorgan Chase (JPM), and Oracle (ORCL) announced a buyout of Bea Systems (BEAS).

Premarket gainers: BEAS, VSTA, NITE, THRM, TIBX, GRRF, JAVA, TLAB, PTNR, ERIC, CHIC, MICC, XMSR, BRLC, RVBD, and VRTX.

Premarket losers: SGMS, CPKI, INTC, ASML, GOLD, NVDA, SCRX, SMSI, CRXL, NOEC, DELL, AMED, ESLR, ZQK, RIMM, MELI, QGEN, DRYS, AKNS, SOLF, STXS, SCON, WDC, AAPL, CSUN, SIGM, ACH, ABK, CBAK, KNOT, YHOO, IIJI, SEED, MR, JASO, MSFT, LDK, ADCT, CSIQ, AMAT, CSCO, and AMZN.

We have full docket today with reports on Industrial Production (9:15AM), EIA Petro (10:30AM), Housing Market Index (1:PM), and the Beige Book (2:PM). If they can break the August and March 2007 intraday lows in the S&P 500 we will be in confirmed bear market mode as long-term uptrends fail and downtrends begin to really take hold. Be smart out there today.