ahh, a sweet lil inside day... suggesting the tension is...

ahh, a sweet lil inside day... suggesting the tension is building for a wide range day .. maybe even tonight with the Lehman report.. possibly wednesday usa time with the FOMC report..will it be a sweetness and light bullish break cos the fed has arrived on its white charger.. or will it be financial nukes at close quarters as Prophet suggests... prophets post repeated here to kick off the thread..

dates as follows....These will monsterously overshadow fed. Dont be fooled.

Lehman Brothers reports on Tuesday, and analysts like Bove will be looking for how much troubled debt is on the firms' books. In August, Lehman shuttered most of its mortgage business.

Morgan Stanley, which has very little exposure to subprime mortgages, is known as one of the most aggressive traders on the street. Its report on Wednesday will also be well followed.

Goldman's report on Thursday will be a barometer of the overall industry because it is the most diverse investment bank, and it might have used volatile market conditions to make shrewd trades. The firm acknowledged last month that its flagship hedge fund suffered steep losses.

Bear Stearns also reports on Thursday, and Wall Street will be looking for how its vast fixed-income business performed during the past few months. Two Bear Stearns hedge funds collapsed into bankruptcy this summer after wrong-way bets on mortgage debt.

Merrill Lynch & Co., the world's largest brokerage, will report its results in October. However, on Friday the broker said it recorded adjustments to the value of certain investments in the third quarter, acknowledging they lost value as the debt markets remain in seizure.

"They are terribly, terribly important," said Quincy Krosby, chief economist for The Hartford. "I don't think you can have a truly sustainable rally unless the financials stabilize. For the retail investor, the earnings will give general guidance for where we are in unraveling the crisis."