Friends
After yesterday’s fireworks, provided mainly by ECB President
Mario Draghi, traders came to work this morning prepared for the government
jobs report. Knowing that President Obama knew this number yesterday (and he
sure looked a little deflated last night during his speech), still analysts had
been expecting a somewhat better report having seen Thursday’s ADP number
surprise to the upside. Instead, the non-farm payroll number was a huge
disappointment. Only 96,000 new jobs were created which was considerably less
than had been expected (hoped for). The unemployment rate did fall from 8.3% to
8.1%, but that was totally attributed to the fact that a whole lot of folks
just stopped looking for a job altogether. As a matter of fact, about four
times as many people gave up looking for a job than actually got a new job.
Yikes!
Of course, all this virtually assures that the Fed will bring some
more punch to the party next week to add to the already overflowing punch bowl.
In terms of the markets, traders seemed exhausted after yesterday’s action. The
shorts seemed to have already covered yesterday, and the bulls may want to see
Dr. Bernanke bring the heat next week before committing more firepower at 4 ½
year highs in stocks. Anyway, at the close the Dow Jones Industrial Average was
up 14 points to finish the day at 13,306. The S&P 500 was up 5 points to
close at 1437. Gold was up $33 to trade at $1738 per ounce, while oil rallied
back and traded up $.83 to finish near $96.36 per barrel WTI.
To sum up the week, Mr. Draghi did his part fueling a big rally on
Thursday, and today’s employment mess most likely means that Dr. Bernanke will
bring the accommodation next week. Will the market continue to frustrate the
“logical” bears? Can the bulls make a mad dash for 1500 on the
S&P? Stay tuned, we’ll keep you informed over the next few weeks.
Have a great weekend everyone.
