You see it in almost everything ... a lack of confidence. The banks trade to new lows daily as there just isn't any confidence as to whether they will be there tomorrow. We have entire industries being wiped out ... on lack of confidence. Economics, my friends, has as one of its basic premises - confidence.

Until someone takes charge, steps up and says that things will be OK; that there is a plan and here's what we are going to do. Until someone steps up and says we are simply not going to let things fail and gives a plan as to how that is true - confidence is going to be lacking and any attempt to work this market higher is going to be fraught with fear.

C traded down another 25% to under $5 this morning and that is the story out here again. Broad weakness in that group is a real issue. Evidently, with the SPX nearing 2002 lows, the buyers thought it a good time to take a stand and they started reaching for technology stocks.

So the strength is technology, the weakness financials. It could be that we are just so sold out that we can lift from here but to that, the financials have to find a floor and JPM and C have to find some buyers.

Yesterday, I signed off with a reference to some comparisons between this bear market and 2000-2. I talked about how we had me the same downside objective in less than half the time. Here's a chart that shows what each of the four major bear markets of the past 90 years looks like on a price and time perspective. It's an eye-opener as we have just witnessed a crash that has the same magnitude of all these crashes save the 29 crash although even when compared to that one, we have the same magnitude of its initial thrust down.

$Compq closed at 1386 today. The previously mentioned 1622 target was canceled when we went below 1510. Another ABC down may have finished today. Wave A down started at 1897 on 10/14 and finished at 1500 on 10/24. Wave B up from 1500 finished at 1786 on 11/04. Start of wave A at 1897 to center of wave B at 1643 projects a wave C target of 1389 which we have overshot by 3 points at todays close.

In the bear market of 2000-2002, it took roughly 2 and 1/2 years to erase practically the same amount of points that we have now literrally shaved off this market in about a year. So either we have another year and a half of shaving to do and whatever remaining percentage that adds up to or we just did it a lot quicker. Ask anybody which outcome and they would say the former as the pessimism out here is really that bad.

Today the banking index took out its lows and didn't even stop to consider what that meant. The insurance companies are being completely taken apart and that must mean that the next shoe to drop is commerical real estate as they are big investors in that arena. The REITs are saying the same thing.

I don't need to tell you that the lows from last week were removed as well by the closing bell today. That was true of all the majors save the DJIA.

This negativity is just plain unrelenting. This is the 4th day that I've watched a 10:1 negative internals on up/down stocks on the NYSE. There used to be a study that suggested rallies when you got one of these readings but anymore, statistics just don't seem to matter. The probabilities are obliterated on a daily basis anymore it seems.