Two spots to watch when the story doesn't add up

Miserable sentiment grips markets

To me it's bizarre to blame all the tumult on a weak yuan. The moves in CNY are miniscule in the grand scheme of things. Blaming oil is a circular argument.

Emerging market economic weakness is a genuine concern but it's nothing new.

When the fundamentals don't add up, there are two places to look. 1) The calendar 2) The charts.

It's the first trading week of the year. That's not a time of year when it pays to try to make sense of market moves.

The chart, however, is worrisome. S&P 500 futures just broke the December and mid-October double bottom. They're down 1.8% today. I'd like to see it give out in the cash market before drawing any conclusions but this is an ugly start to the year.

My base case is that we get the early-year flows out of the way today and then move on to something a bit less jittery.

The final place to watch is the clock. The European close has been pivotal so far this week, marking intraday extremes. Look for the same today.