With no real buying interest other than from short-covering bears, the Dow manages to start each day with a gap-up opening of between 50 to 100 points nonetheless.  This seems to occur as long as there is no disturbing news, which these days implies merely that planet Earth has survived another day. Economic news long ago became irrelevant, of course, other than as a tool used by those who manipulate stocks for a living to cash out in trending markets.