Depending on how you look at it, (Citigroup's earnings) only beat by 2 cents, ... It's got to be better than two pennies to get people that excited.

That's making the 60 cents (a share earnings) look a lot softer. We're not too concerned about it. But if you want to call this a hit, it's not the best hit we've ever seen.

There's a lot of trepidation out there about earnings, ... A lot of times, the complexion of markets is what the household names are doing. A couple of weeks ago it was about IBM ( Research ) and Apple ( Research ). Today, it looks like the focus is on Amazon, and that can shape the market -- at least in the early going.

With declines three days in a row, you know it must be earnings season,

Following the update we are raising our EPS (earnings per share) forecast for the current year from 201 cents to 205 cents.

What we've gotten, in terms of economic data and earnings, is no sense things are picking up ? they're (investors) afraid of another ledge to go over,