Easy to sum up the earnings reports in a few choice words...big miss, downturn will worsen, quarter even worse than we thought, not immune to a deteriorating consumer credit environment.   In no specific order,  this covers the scope of what's out there from AXP, TXN, SNDK, AAPL, WB.    Not so little fish they are.   A few reports out there are decent, but most likely will be lost within this mess.   What we do is turn a blind eye to all this as we have for most of 2008 and concentrate on commodities as Monday's trade was not bad at all.

Ag's-chems, the only group we had on radar last week, we noted a 20% increase in certain prices coming and said to watch for news flow stemming from it, including EPS raises.  Yesterday, we had a big EPS raise from JPM on POT and this exploded the entire group. JPM also raised CF.   MOS CMP were the other names noted last week and they both joined in.

Coals, this was interesting as London API 2 prices were dropping hard early in trading overseas, as much as 5% taking coal down to 178/tonne.  Soon a report hit the wires that MTL, Russian biggie was interested in getting a piece of an North American coal.  We have discussed this in the past as an important part of the coal trade as CLF was rumored to be one to be eaten.  This report included the PCX, MEE, FDG all DJIM coal plays.  This is no surprise and the move may have been exaggerated, but we'll take any catalysts to make these plays look better again.

Steels Shales,  it is no surprise these caught on with the commodities above and a higher oil price.  We have STLD with good earnings this am.   We haven`t changed our shadowlist,  we`ve had no reason to and yesterday could have a been a profitable day if you know how each play connects and to what.  Still, this a traders environment and we can`t say with confidence these groups are out of the doghouse for those that want a longer hold than a few hours.

What`s bad for the AAPL and the whole broad market, is probably better for all our commodity plays as money has to flow somewhere away from the troubled groups.     At least,  this is what we hope for in the short term as we simply turn a blind eye to all the noise out there today and concentrate on what we`ve been looking at all year for a possible trade again.   We have no choice,  it`s is bleak out there and a follow through from last week looks to be roped in.

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