S&P downgrades 11 Spanish banks not too surprising since the sovereign was downgraded last week. An FT article hints that Spain wants to apply for a line of credit as a means of avoiding the stain that would be created with requesting a bailout. The ECB would institute the bond-buying under this scenario which makes markets happy this morning. German sentiment was up, not surprising since sentiment is up in the States as well, now that Europe at least has the apperance of calm over the last couple months. Germany cuts the 2013 GDP forecast. Europe is an ongoing mess overall. Equity markets go up an down over the last month purely based on whether or not Spain requests the bailout. Protestors riot in Portugal against austerity measures. European auto sales take a large move down. This after the Retail Sales numbers in the States yesterday painted a rosie auto sales picture. The auto loan industry is the next subprime fiasco in the making. Get rid of that old jalopy, if you have a heartbeat and can fog a mirror, you will be able to get a car loan no problemmo, so run down to the dealer today and help yourself to a new Cadillac Escalade. Drive around like a big shot for a few months then simply hand it back in when the repo man knocks on the door. Isn't America great?Yesterday's action was quite dramatic into the close with the bulls driving the utilities sector higher. UTIL tagged 478.43 but closed under. Watch this closely today since if UTIL moves above 478.43, Keybot the Quant, Keystone's algo, will likely flip to the long side. Copper was on the verge of collapse yesterday, watch the JJC 46.25-46.30 area, but received a stick-save. The copper recovery, higher financials, and technology, with AAPL recovering all created the market buoyancy as yesterday played out. As AAPL goes, so goes the markets.The SPX is moving thru the sideways 1424-1441 channel discussed this weekend and in this morning's SPX chart. Today we see if the bulls have the gusto to move price above the top rail of this channel. The bulls only need a single point higher after the open to launch an upside acceleration to 1444 then 1446 and perhaps 1447 to back kiss the 20-day MA at 1447.77. The futures are up one point as this missive is typed. Pay attention to the 8 and 34 MA cross on the SPX 30-minute chart and the 200 EMA on the 60-minute chart. Both flipped bullish yesterday so see if that holds today, or not. The VIX closed exactly in the middle of a bracket formed by the 20 and 50-day MA's so watch which side volatility wants to break out. If VIX moves up, markets move down, if VIX moves down, markets move up. Watch the euro which moved above 130 this morning. Use that as a gauge where market bulls are happy above 130 and bears are happy below 130.GS reports earnings within the half hour. Look for 2.28 bottom line and 7.2 billion top line. This will drive the futures, and judging by a pop up to +3.50 in the S&P's now, perhaps some traders already received the news? KO, INTC, MAT and JNJ earnings are on tap as well. UNH reported and beat on the bottom line. IBM earnings are after the bell and this will greatly impact the tech sector which will move the broad indexes. CPI data is at 8:30 AM, TIC data is 9 AM which shows foreign investment, Industrial Production is at 9:15 AM and the Housing Index at 10 AM. The main event occurs this evening at 9 PM EST with the second Presidential Debate, Obama versus Romney, in a town hall environment. In a nutshell, if UTIL moves above 478.43 and the SPX is above 1441, Keybot the Quant will likely flip long today.Note Added 10/16/12 at 8:35 AM: C announces that Pandit is out as CEO. Prince Al-Waleed owns a lot of C stock so he probably got sick of Pandit and told him to pack his bags. C did the reverse 10:1 stock split months ago since it could not stay above five bucks to allow institutional buying. The 36 stock price in essence reflects a $3.60 stock price, a penny stock. C is down 3% pre-market. GS beat on earnings but is soft in early trading, likewise KO. Futures continue to point to a bounce higher at the open. AAPL is up two bucks. The Nasdaq and S&P's are both up 0.5% so tech is not tipping its hand as to which direction it wants to lead today. Watch UTIL 478.43. If the futures remain elevated, the SPX should tag the 20-day MA at 1447-1448 after the open.