• $2.1 billion.

"One last thing."

-- Lt. Columbo

My mavens on the floor see $2.1 billion to buy on the close.

Financials have $490 million to buy, energy $300 million to buy, consumer staples $300 million to buy and health care $250 million to buy.

In terms of individual securities, on the buy side is Avon Products (AVP, $118 million), Pfizer (PFE, $80 million) and Citigroup (C, $75 million).

On the sell side AbbVie (ABBV, $75 milllion), Praxair (PX, $60 million) and Pitney Bowes (PBI, $30 million).

• Thanks for reading my diary.

I am outta here.

I wanted to wish everyone a great holiday and long weekend.

Thanks for reading my diary.

Programming note: I am going to try once again to make the trek down to Florida on Monday, which would put me on the road still on Tuesday. Not to fret, though, because you'll be in good hands with Gary "The Count" Dvorchak. I'll return to my perch on Wednesday.

• I am consolidating my holdings.

It should be clear that I am consolidating my holdings, sticking with those on which I have the most conviction and ratcheting down the hatches in preparation for more challenging markets.

• I have covered yesterday's short Financial Sector SPDR (XLF) rental at breakeven.

• Procter & Gamble (PG), adjusted for the payment of its dividend, is now trading at more than $70.50 a share.

I have taken some off.

• I am taking off most of my CSX (CSX) long now.

The proximate reason?

The economic slowdown I see developing augurs poorly for the company's near-term fundamentals and the shares have had a reasonable run to the upside.

• Here is this week's Ask Noah, "Asking Relatives for Financial Advice."

• The Treasury announced its intention to sell the remaining 300 million shares of General Motors (GM) that it owns over the next 12-15 months.

This is not new news.

• I am not sure why the market would lift on kicking the can down the road.

The futures have lifted on a Washington Post report that:

[U]nder a bill to be considered next week, House Republicans will propose raising the debt ceiling for two months, long enough they say, to give both chambers time to pass a budget. The measure will provide that if either the Senate or the House fails to adopt a budget by April 15, members of the Congress will not be paid.

I am not sure why the market would lift on kicking the can down the road (when we will revisit the same issue again), but we seem to be an environment that is impervious to bad news.

Needless to say such a bill would not pass the Senate.

• CNBC's John Harwood has confirmed a short-term debt extention plan with conditions.

Break in: CNBC's John Harwood has confirmed a short-term debt extention plan with conditions.

As I said earlier, this will likely engender more uncertainty on the part of the consumer and business sectors.

I suspect the Democrats will reject this out of hand. 

• The ECB's Benoît Cœuré says that the eurozone is not out of this crisis yet.

Break in: The ECB's Benoît Cœuré says that the central bank must implement 2012 promises in 2013 and that the eurozone is not out of this crisis yet.

• A delay until April will disappoint the markets, as it will bolster the current uncertainty.

A New York Times article is saying that the Republicans will ask for a short-term increase of one month in the debt ceiling.

A delay until April will disappoint the markets, as it will bolster the current uncertainty.

If accurate, at the least, this will cap the upside to the markets.

At the worst, who knows?

• Run, don't walk, to watch James Gorman on Bloomberg.

An upbeat James Gorman at Morgan Stanley (MS) on Bloombergtalking about the company's progress.

• Here's a whiff.

Below are the intraday breadth graphs of the three major indices.

Breadth

Source: Bloomberg

View Chart »View in New Window »

And breadth at 11:00 a.m. EST looks like this:

• S&P 500 -- 168 advancers to 318 decliners
• Nasdaq -- 807 advancers to 1,173 decliners
• NYSE -- 714 advancers to 1,086 decliners
• Russell 2000 -- 714 advancers to 1,178 decliners

S&P 500 volume is 52% higher than past 10-day average, 56% higher than past 30-day average and 26% higher than yesterday.

Volume may be considered especially higher this day in light of the fact that it's ahead of a three-day weekend.

• The VIX is approaching a level that has historically provided an unattractive time to buy stocks.

The VIX is searching for a 12 handle now.

History shows that such a VIX reading provides an unattractive time to buy stocks.

• The disappointing University of Michgan confidence survey has liitle to no effect on risk markets.

The market has been unaffected by the disappointing 71.3 print in the January University of Michgan confidence survey.

Rarely do these series impact risk markets, as confidence is not a leading indicator; it is more anecdotal and coincidental than most releases.

• Autos, which led us up, are now starting to weaken.

• The University of Michigan survey was a disappointment.

University of Michigan consumer confidence disappointed.

Below is a long-term chart.

• Today ends the first two weeks of January, so it's show-me time for my surprise.

Though starting out strong, the stock market in 2013 is a tale of two cities, with a weak first half and a stronger second half. The 2013 S&P 500 range is 1275-1480. The S&P 500 ends the year flat.

Beginning-of-the-year equity fund inflows, breathless optimism (of a technically inspired kind) and the initial excitement over the fiscal cliff resolution lift the S&P 500 to its yearly high in the first two weeks of January 2013. Unfortunately, the lack of intelligent, thoughtful leadership becomes ever more apparent in February-March, and ultimately the S&P 500 bottoms at about 1275 (or at 13.5x my projected S&P profit surprise) during the spring.

-- Doug Kass, "15 Surprises for 2013" (from surprise No. 2)

Note: Today ends the first two weeks of January!

• Word is that Greenlight's short involvemnet has taken down Monster Beverage.

Break in: Monster Beverage (MNST) is trading lower on chatter of Greenlight's short involvement.

I have no clue if accurate.

• The financial sector has its winners, but it has an equal amount of losers.

Don't lose sight that for every Morgan Stanley (MS) and Goldman Sachs (GS), there is a Capital One (COF) and American Express (AXP).

• Republicans will likely kick the can down the road for another six months.

It is increasingly clear that the Republicans will likely offer a deal to kick the debt ceiling extension (of $575 billion-plus) down the road for another six months.

In turn, it could now be expected that the Republican Party will use the leverage of sequestration and continuing resolutions, which have March 1 and March 27 deadlines, to get their spending cuts.

My view is that this will produce continued uncertainty in business/consumer confidence, earnings and spending, exposing the market to some more risk -- consistent with my notion of a January S&P 500 high.

As it relates to my short bond position, if this is the outcome, it could delay the widely anticipated interest rate rise over the next few months.

• It is always good to review the facts.

Brian Sozzi comments in Columnist Conversation that earnings are disappointing.

I agree.

It is always good to review the facts.

It is very early in the earnings season, with only about 10% of the S&P 500 reporting fourth-quarter 2012 results.

Thus far, 62% of the earnings reports exceeded expectations and 22% were worse than consensus. Operating earnings are up 4% year over year for those that have already reported profit results, which is in line with expectations but below forecasts of a week or more ago.

Sales are beating consensus by about 52% while 45% have missed. But if you take out the financials, less than 45% are ahead of expectations. This compares favorably to third quarter 2012, when 32% beat consensus on the top line (25% excluding financials).

As we enter 2013, the tug of war between the fiscal drag of austerity/spending cuts and higher tax rates on the consumer are competing against a better housing and jobs market and a modest turn in the manufacturing sector.

I continue to see lower corporate profits in 2013, which remains very much an outlier and variant view.

• Currently, only nine out of 74 stocks I have mentioned recently are eligible to buy, down from 19 out of 74 in late December.

Jerry(Jerry Seinfeld): (To Kramer and Morty) What is this about?

Kramer(Michael Richards): I'm completely changing the configuration of the apartment. You're not gonna believe it when you see it. A whole new lifestyle.

Jerry: What are you doing?

Kramer: Levels.

Jerry: Levels?

Kramer: Yeah, I'm getting rid of all my furniture. All of it. And I'm going to build these different levels, with steps, and it'll all be carpeted with a lot of pillows. You know, like ancient Egypt.

Jerry: You drew up plans for this?

Kramer: No, no. It's all in my head.

Morty(Barney Martin): I don't know how you're going to be comfortable like that.

Kramer: Oh, I'll be comfortable.

-- "Seinfeld," The Pony Remark

Below is an updated list of buy levels on selected stocks that I have mentioned on Real Money Pro.

I would now rate only nine out of 74 stocks (down from 19 out of 74 stocks in late December) as attractive to buy at current levels: Cohen & Steers (CNS), CSX Corporation (CSX), Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold (FCX), Microsoft (MSFT), Northwest Bancshares (NWBI), Och-Ziff (OZM), Procter & Gamble (PG), Sourcefire (FIRE) and ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury (TBT).

Let me explain the distinction in the two different approaches I use in addressing a portfolio and to the portfolio's individual stock construction. I would describe this morning's levels exercise as more of a bottoms-up approach toward selecting individual securities, as compared to my calculation of the S&P 500's fair market value (1415), which is a top-down approach toward the broader market. The two approaches will often yield different results, but given today's multiple and fertile investment opportunities, both provide and indicate broad-based value in the marketplace. In the case of levels, 12% (down from 26%) of the monitored stocks are eligible to buy. In the case of my fair market value calculation, the S&P 500 (Friday's close at 1480) is approximately 5% overvalued.

1. Altisource Portfolio Solutions (ASPS), under $85
2. Altisource Asset Management (AAMC), under $85
3. American Express (AXP), avoid
4. AIG (AIG), under $34
5. Apple (AAPL), under $485
6. Avon Products (AVP), under $15
7. Bank of America (BAC), under $10.50
8. Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B), under $90
9. Bridgepoint Education (BPI), avoid
10. Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY), under $33.50
11. Broadcom (BRCM), under $33.50
12. Caterpillar (CAT), under $88.50
13. Charming Shoppes (CHRS), acquired
14. Chubb (CB), under $74.50
15. Citigroup (C), under $39.50
16. Colgate-Palmolive (CL), under $104
17. Clorox (CLX), under $73.50
18. Cohen & Steers, under $31.50*
19. ConocoPhillips (COP), under $56.50
20. CSX Corporation, under $21*
21. Dell (DELL), under $11.00
22. eBay (EBAY), under $40.50
23. E*Trade (ETFC), under $8.50
24. Ford (F), under $13.00
25. iShares FTSE/Xinhua China 25 Index Fund (FXI), under $39.50
26. Freeport-McMoRan Copper & Gold, under $35*
27. Fortinet (FTNT), under $19.25
28. Fusion-io (FIO), under $20.25
29. General Motors (GM), under $28.00
30. Goldman Sachs (GS), avoid
31. Grand Canyon Education (LOPE), avoid
32. Groupon (GRPN), avoid
33. Henry Schein (HSIC), avoid
34. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), avoid
35. Home Loan Servicing Solutions (HLSS), under $18.50
36. Home Depot (HD), under $62.50
37. IBM (IBM), under $190
38. Intel (INTC), under $20.50
39. International Flavors & Fragrances (IFF), under $68
40. J.C. Penney (JCP), avoid
41. JPMorgan Chase (JPM), under $43
42. Kellogg (K), under 55.50
43. KKR Financial (KFN), under $10.50
44. Loews (L), under $40
45. Legg Mason (LM), under $26
46. Lincoln National (LNC), under $25
47. Lowe's (LOW), under $35.50
48. MetLife (MET), under $34.50
49. MGIC Investment (MTG), avoid
50. Microsoft, under $28*
51. Morgan Stanley (MS), under $18.50
52. Northwest Bancshares, under $12.35*
53. Oaktree (OAK), under $44
54. Och-Ziff, under $9.50*
55. Ocwen Financial (OCN), under $35
56. Peabody Energy (BTU), avoid
57. Pitney Bowes (PBI), avoid
58. PepsiCo (PEP), under $71
59. Procter & Gamble, under $70*
60. PNC Financial (PNC), under $60
61. Prudential (PRU), under $54
62. Research In Motion (RIMM), avoid
63. Schwab (SCHW), under $14.25
64. Sourcefire, under $44.50*
65. SunTrust (STI), under $27
66. ProShares UltraShort 20+ Year Treasury, under $66*
67. Target (TGT), under $60
68. T. Rowe Price (TROW), under $67
69. Waddell & Reed (WDR), under $35.50
70. Walter Energy (WLT), avoid
71. Wells Fargo (WFC), under $33.50
72. XL Group (XL), under $24.50
73. Exxon Mobil (XOM), under $88
74. Yahoo! (YHOO), under $19.00

*Eligible to buy at current levels

• I am reducing the recommended exposure of the long-only Kass model portfolio from 50% to 40%.

Reflecting an S&P 500 that is about 4.5% overvalued, I am reducing the recommended exposure of the long-only Kass model portfolio from 50% to 40% this morning.

• Here it is.

We have a light economic calendar today.

• Pretty flat.

Flat city overnight:

• S&P futures, +0.50;
• crude unchanged,
• gold unchanged;
• European markets mixed;
• Euro down; and
• 10-year U.S. note yield 1.87%.