Stock Market Rally Before the Big Jobs Report

By: PhilStockWorld

Courtesy of Doug Short: Before the market opened, the latest new jobless claims report was a bit better than expected and European markets were rallying. The S&P 500 followed suit, rallying at the open and trading higher through the day to its 1.24% close, just fractionally off its 1.28% intraday high shortly before the bell. Today’s rally comes in advance of tomorrow’s big employment report for January. The mainstream consensus is for 175K-185K new nonfarm jobs. My forecast? A beat will be good news, and a miss will probably be dismissed as weather related.

The yield on the 10-year note rose 3 bps to 2.73%. The interim high was 3.04% at the end of 2013.

Here is a snapshot of the week so far. The index is down 0.51%

Here is a daily chart of the SPY ETF, where volume gives a better sense of investor sentiment. The 2014 daily declines have generally come on substantially higher volume than the advances.

Here is a look at the S&P 500 drawdowns (percent off highs) since the market bottom on March 9, 2009. I’ve highlighted the declines in excess of 5%.

The S&P 500 is now down 4.05% for 2014.

Here is a longer perspective, starting with the all-time high prior to the Great Recession.

For a better sense of how these declines figure into a larger historical context, here’s a long-term view of secular bull and bear markets in the S&P Composite since 1871.

- Phil

www.philstockworld.com

Philip R. Davis is a founder of Phil's Stock World (www.philstockworld.com), a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders. Mr. Davis is a serial entrepreneur, having founded software company Accu-Title, a real estate title insurance software solution, and is also the President of the Delphi Consulting Corp., an M&A consulting firm that helps large and small companies obtain funding and close deals. He was also the founder of Accu-Search, a property data corporation that was sold to DataTrace in 2004 and Personality Plus, a precursor to eHarmony.com. Phil was a former editor of a UMass/Amherst humor magazine and it shows in his writing -- which is filled with colorful commentary along with very specific ideas on stock option purchases (Phil rarely holds actual stocks). Visit: Phil's Stock World (www.philstockworld.com)

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