We're still three-to-four weeks away from second-quarter earnings reports and there's nothing really to light a candle under stocks,

We're going to have awful earnings reports for the second and third-quarter so we have to brace ourselves for that. To make a sustained rally, we need to see economic news and earnings news start to turn positive and we don't see that happening until the fourth quarter.

We had a lot of bumpy reports in the second quarter and we shouldn't have. The economy and production were very strong in the second quarter, and earnings should have been on the upside. The fact that they weren't is an important signal.

The market is sloppy and choppy. This is earnings season. We're going to have a mixed bag.

The estimates are for earnings to be down 50 percent in the second quarter, 37 percent in the third quarter, and 12 percent in the fourth.

My sense is that an earnings recovery is further away than expected and there is no immediate catalyst to turn this market sharply higher. We could have a trading rally, but on balance, people are still nervous about the earnings outlook.