Japan drops 7.5% on Mon, U.S. markets holding their breadth

With the world hoping there's no nuclear meltdown of the power plants in Japan, everyone is essentially watching.

While the U.S. markets steadily dropped for the first 2 1/2 hours, the decline was limited to 1.5% before rallying in the final 3 1/2 hours to cut the losses to .5% on the averages.

NYSE Breadth was 19 down for every 11 up. Only 99 issues closed at 50-day highs.

Obviously the Ultrashort Japan ETF (EWV) was the top performer up 5.11 to 39.15.

Agriculture led by SMG up 1.25 to 57.16.

Warren Buffett reared his ugly head buying out LZ as it moved up 29 pts to 134.68. The move drove the rest of the chemical sector higher as NEU rose 15.39 to 146.

The U.S. averages are holding above the 50-day moving average. Although at this hour, the futures are showing 2% declines for the U.S. markets. Japan is expected to drop more at the open but until we see a close below the 50-day, we've either wisely or stupidly held our longs. I'm worried about prematurely getting shaken out and have the market rocket higher. We can only take it day by day and see what the closing price says.