(By Tim - iStockAnalyst Writer) Rapidly becoming the norm it was another very volatile week for the U.S... and global stock markets. The major market averages all ended the week down significantly. The Dow Jones Industrials lost 5%, the S&P 500 shed 6.2% and the NASDAQ was off 7.9%. The one bright spot for the averages was a technical one. On Thursday, the averages fell to test their October lows and then rallied strongly. The Dow Industrials made a full 900 point swing from the days low to closing. Too bad the momentum did not continue through Friday. Here are the levels for the indexes where the current floor seems to be holding: Dow Industrials: 8,000, S&P 500: 850 and the NASDAQ has firmed at about 1,500. It will be positive news if the markets can build technical resistance at these levels.

On the individual sector front, retail led the news and it was almost all bad. For the overall economy retail sales dropped a record 2.8% in October. Retailers that reported earning for the week all seemed to have bad news. Probably the worst came from electronics retailer Circuit City (CCTYQ) which declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Circuit City rival Best Buy (BBY) cut it full year earning guidance to $2.30 to $2.90 from the previous $3.25 to $3.40 and reduced revenue estimates by $2-$3 billion. JC Penny (JCP) and Abercrombie & Fitch (ANF) also chipped in with reports of sharply lower earnings.

Walmart was the one positive story in the retail space with earnings growing 10% for the 3rd quarter. It seems that when economic times get tough, shoppers shop Walmart.

General Motors (GM) also remained near the top of the news as Congress discussed a bailout and the rest of the universe discussed possible bankruptcy.

On Monday, Dow Jones unveiled a new Global Dow Index (GDOW) consisting of 150 companies from both established and emerging market economies. The GDOW promptly declined 7.3%.

The Euro zone officially entered recession territory with its 2nd straight quarter of negative growth. Germany and Italy are officially recessionary but France managed a stellar 0.1% GDP growth rate for the 3rd quarter. European stocks promptly rallied Friday on the news.

Next week has a full plate of economic reports that will give us an indication of where the U.S... economy is going.

On Monday, we get the manufacturing twins of Industrial Production and Capacity Utilization for October.. Economist expectations are that industrial production will be about level compared to last month's 2.8% decline. Capacity utilization is expected to pick up 2/10 to 76.6%. It would be a positive if these numbers are actually better than September's figures, but I will not be surprised if they come in worse than expected.

Inflation figures will show themselves with PPI and core PPI on Tuesday and CPI and core CPI on Wednesday. Core number exclude energy and food and are expected to show inflation under control.