Gary Kaltbaum is an investment advisor with over 18 years experience, and a Fox News Channel Business Contributor. Gary is the author of The Investors Edge. Mr. Kaltbaum is also the host of the nationally syndicated radio show "Investors Edge" on over 50 radio stations. Gary is also editor and publisher of "Gary Kaltbaum's Trendwatch"... a weekly and monthly technical analysis research report for the institutional investor. If you would like a free trial to Gary's Daily Market Alerts click here or call 888.484.8220 ext. 1.

You cannot be the CEO of any public company you want, let alone General Electric (GE | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating). And then to tell the world on March 13th that your earnings are "in the bag" only to miss by a mile. Did anyone learn a lesson from the dude running Bear Stearns (BSC | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating)?

In the past few reports, I noted how the market was acting better. As long as the market rallied on heavy volume and pulled back on light volume, I was good. As long as leadership held up and more leadership showed up, I was good. As long as I did not see a plethora of breakdowns, I was good. Well, a few pins but not all may have been pulled.

Let's start off with something that has not changed... this remains a very tough market to navigate on a daily basis, and now we are headed right into earnings season. Major averages are now back to the March 20th follow through day... meaning no progress for the major averages since. Yummy! I must add that the all-important NASDAQ has already had a distribution day this week. This leads us to Friday's action. The good news is that volume was light for such a big down day. The bad news is that too many are using that as a positive. I am not sure that such a large drop is positive whether there is heavy or light volume.

Other not-so-thrilling things:

The TRANSPORTS, which were actually leading a bit, were smacked with a big volume ugly on Wednesday.

It's not good when a leading area gets smoked.

All other major averages are back below their respective 50 day averages. In bear markets, major averages spend most their time below the 50 day... which is always below longer-term moving averages. In bull markets, major averages spend most their time above the 50... which in turn is above long term moving averages. I also would make a note that the DOW and S&P hit a wall at what I call the "DUH, RESISTANCE!" It is normal to hit this resistance a few times before breaking above it... but with Friday's action, it will be tougher to crack. Resistance on the DOW is around the 12,768 and S&P 1396.

WORLD MARKETS, while rallying a bit with our market, continue to lag. They led in the bull market...and by a wide margin.

The good news is that while there continues to be only a handful of good looking groups, these groups have not budged in the past week...nor did they budge on Friday. Those groups are COAL, STEEL, FERTILIZERS,

AGRICULTURE, OIL & GAS-(EXPLORERS, PRODUCTION, DRILLING),RAILS and TRUCKERS. It may not be much but what is working is working well. Other groups that have been coming on and displaying better relative strength but pulled back this week are HOMEBUILDERS and SEMIS.

Get ready for earnings. Any more GE-like numbers and look for bear market lows to be retested. Remember, it will not be the news. It will be how things react to the news.