TODAY'S OPEN: DOWN

"Though off lows of the session, S&P 500 futures fell 3.8 points to 864.30 and Nasdaq 100 futures dropped 5 points to 1,201.00. Dow industrial futures slipped 54 points, with grim earnings news from Alcoa and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's warning that the timing of an economic recovery was uncertain denting sentiment."

The major averages fell on Monday, extending last week's losses ahead of the unofficial start to last quarter's earnings season. The volume total on the NYSE was reported higher than Friday's total, which indicated more distributional pressure, however the volume reported on the Nasdaq exchange was lighter. Decliners trumped advancers by over a 3-to-1 ratio on the NYSE and on the Nasdaq exchange.

The Bank ($BKX -6.10%) and Broker/Dealer ($XBD -4.72%) indexes suffered large losses on Monday. The financial group faced pressure as Citigroup (C -17.04%) reportedly worked on ways to stem looming losses with a pending deal to sell a majority stake of its brokerage, Smith Barney, to Morgan Stanley (MS -1.42%) for $2.5 billion to $3.5 billion cash. Commodity linked areas also fell sharply as the Gold & Silver Index ($XAU -6.64%) outpaced the Oil Services ($OSX -4.95%) and Integrated Oil ($XOI -3.17%) indexes. The Retail Index ($RLX -2.82%), Healthcare ($HMO -2.84%) group, and the tech sector lost ground as the Semiconductor ($SOX -2.88%), Internet ($IIX -2.61%), Networking ($NWX -2.14%), and Biotechnology ($BTK -1.31%) indexes ended unanimously lower.

Maria Bartiromo talks with Columbia's Amar Bhidé and NYU's Nouriel Roubini in the latest skimpy issue of BusinessWeek. There are the usual doom and gloom forecasts for 2009, including Roubini's "I expect job losses of at least 2.5 million." What I found most interesting was the following:

Maria: You don't agree with the current stimulus ideas?Bhidé: I am deeply skeptical. I certainly thought [the Troubled Asset Relief Program] was a terrible mistake. I have enormous confidence in the institutions of America, and I hope they will override the mistakes individuals make. But this whole business of TARP reminded me a lot of the WMD business in Iraq: "Oh my God, just trust us. There are these WMDs, and unless you give us the authority now and right now to bomb them, disaster will befall us all." Giving Wall Street or Detroit or the banks money with virtually no personal accountability erodes the legitimacy of the system. Ultimately, the great strength of this economy is the belief that the game is not rigged, that we can all get ahead if only we try harder. The destruction of that belief could be an awful consequence of this desperate shoveling of money.