Stocks were weak most of the day driven by lackluster earnings and the quality of those earnings calculations.

The markets were cheered during the day when a story broke that a small group of traders in interest rate derivatives was able to score a cool $300 million profit for the quarter.

Of course that spectacular amount did not obtain from ‘prop trading’ which the Banks have been told to exit, but from just ‘serving their customers’ and holding ‘certain positions for inventory.’

Yeah, right. Well, I am sure the NY Fed has their back or something like that.

After the bell, Amazon laid an earnings egg, and tech stocks moved lower in the futures markets. The stock was down a bit over six percent.

Alphabet, a part of the behemoth formerly known as Google, turned in what looked like a positive report but the stock was largely unchanged as the markets went seeking a Rosetta Stone to try and interpret Alpha’s hieroglyphics accounting numbers.

And a pleasant is guaranteed, for just a few.