Big blue is singing the blues and holding back the market that otherwise wants to trade higher, but IBM continued earnings misses and weighting in the Dow is proving to be a real speedbump. (I think the CEO should shed businesses, make acquisitions, slow down buy backs and skip the next invite to the White House.)

I’m actually feeling better about earnings early into the start of the current round of releases even with the high profiled misses.  But the market needs more to propel out of its range and put some of the Washington, D.C. execution anxiety on the shelf. 

Retailers act great, which hints at bottom fishing, but not the kind of accumulation associated with longer term rebounds. 

On crude oil, the fact inventories didn’t decline as much as anticipated shouldn’t overshadow that this is the first back to back weeks of decline in almost a year.

Overall, the market is marking time, but individual names look very compelling.  I want to see a rally into the close on no news as part of the reversal in bias and reason to buy now rather than waiting.