Last week, the Northeast and especially the greater Washington, D.C., area dug out from #Blizzard2016. It took the area in and around the nation’s capital many days to plow and de-ice the roads since no clear and effective plan to do so seemed to exist. From my perch, the slowdown in the D.C. area was reflective of the slowdown we’ve seen in the larger domestic economy, particularly the manufacturing and industrial economy, over the last several months.

While I’ve talked about falling Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization, as well as weakness from data published by the Institute for Supply Management, the final data point that was the December Durable Orders report came in with a headline of -5.1% while the all-important core capital goods reading that excludes volatile non-defense/non-aircraft orders fell 4.3%. Yep, it was another data point reflecting a slowing, if not contracting, domestic economy.

Despite the growing amount of data, it seems that at least some observers were surprised by the weaker-than-expected first gross domestic product (GDP) reading for 4Q 2015 of 0.7%. There are people who will paint it as a modest miss from the expected figure of 0.8%. But let’s remember that several months ago, many were calling for 4Q 2015 GDP to grow 2% or better.

Mash the above data with the preponderance of reports from regional Federal Reserve banks that show further contraction in January and I was not surprised at all by the Fed’s commentary following its monetary policy meeting last week. Looking at non-government published indicators, we find the sharp drop in the Baltic Dry Index that covers prices for transported cargo (coal, grain, iron ore and other commodities) signaling further economic weakness ahead.

Examining all the above and more, I was certainly not surprised to see the likely date of the next Fed rate hike slipping to May from March. What did catch me off guard was the Bank of Japan’s move to negative interest rates, which led to a sharp move higher for the market and led the S&P 500 to close the week up 1.2% for the week, bringing its year-to-date return to down 5.6%.

That lack of rebounding fundamentals led to a fall in 10-year Treasury yields as investors flock to safety, and we’d note the drop in 10-year Treasury yields continued last week even though oil prices rebounded to finish at $33.75 per barrel for oil. That move higher was fueled by rumors OPEC would cut production. However, as we learned this morning, that view is rather circumspect and oil has started to fall in price again.

While all of this seems rather gloomy, it has been simply fantastic for our two utility positons. Our FirstEnergy (FE) February $32 calls (FE160219C00032000) are now trading at $1.30, roughly 85% higher than when I first recommended them last week. Even better, our PPL Corp. (PPL) February $35 calls (PPL160219C00035000) are trading at $0.75 — more than 160% higher than when I first recommended them to you and other subscribers just last week. While it’s tempting to be greedy given this market volatility, my recommendation is to sell both the FE and the PPL call positions and book some hefty wins.

It is easy to get caught up in wins like that. But I remain cautious, given this morning’s tepid economic data and the deluge of corporate earnings we have this week. While some will focus on the more than 700 companies issuing their results this week, my eyes are focused on the more than 100 S&P 500 companies that will be doing that this week. Here’s why. Per FactSet, 40% of the companies in the S&P 500 have reported earnings to date for 4Q 2015 with the blended earnings decline clocking in at -5.8% vs. the forecast of -5.0% on December 31, 2015. As these earnings reports and outlook revisions have been digested, we’ve seen 2016 earnings expectations continue to slide from $130.55 per share in early October 2015 to the current $123.32 per share, which equates to 4.8% growth vs. 2015 earnings for the S&P 500 group of companies. That’s less than half the forecasted earnings growth rate just four months ago!

I expect 2016 expectations will come into sharper focus this week as another 24% of the S&P 500 companies report their result. Given the economic and other data, I see a high probability that earnings expectations for the index will continue to move lower. At the same time, I don’t want us to get blindsided by another round of monetary stimulus actions like we saw last Friday from Japan, or worse yet, rumors of such action that whipsaw the market.

One company that I am circling is Chipotle Mexican Grille (CMG) — the shares have fallen hard following the E. coli news, but it’s sounding like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is about to give the all-clear signal. That should be a positive for the stock. However, Chipotle won’t report its December-quarter results until tomorrow. Given what we’ve seen from Boeing (BA), Apple (AAPL), United Rentals (URI) and others, not to mention weak lines at a number of Chipotle locations, I’m more inclined to let any additional bad news hit the shares before stepping up to the plate. CMG shares and calls are ones to watch.

Enjoy your week and, as we run the gauntlet of earnings and economic data that promise to make this one of the busiest weeks in some time, I’ll be sure to issue you a special alert if we need to take additional action.