Tax Day

While the morning's rally attempt failed, investors finally showed some interest in stocks again amid lots of bottom calling chatter in the financials. Volume was still fairly low.

Food and energy costs continue to be thorny issues along with no pick up in home building. Fortunately, the bulls have something to chew on with tonight's report from Intel. Will it be enough to stoke another rally attempt tomorrow? I wouldn't be surprised.

The market is looking for reasons to justify their hope that the worst is over and if the market can stabilize here and regain its composure, that will certainly help calm down the herd. At a minimum there should be enough volatility this week to keep both the bulls and bears happy so long as their time frames are exceptionally short.

So, how difficult is this tape? It isn't the worst I've seen (not by a long shot), but that doesn't make it easy. I'll have a trade flashback tomorrow that will provide a timely illustration of a mistake I made this week that shows just how difficult it is to navigate earnings season without losing money, even in good stocks.

Along with more earnings, tomorrow's CPI, housing starts, oil inventory numbers, Fedspeak, the afternoon Beige Book, and the release of first-quarter GDP for China (important for commodities) are going to be more than enough to keep us all very busy. See you then!