Only A Pause That Refreshes?

Good morning. A bullish reaction to this morning's jobs report has set a very positive tone. Nonfarm payrolls in February rose 97,000 while payroll figures for January and December were revised higher. Hourly earnings rose +0.4% (consensus +0.3%) while the unemployment rate unexpectedly fell to 4.5% from 4.6%. The reaction to the report shows that people think that goldilocks is alive and well.

Stocks moving higher in premarket trading are CRYO, JSDA, CMGI, SMDI, OMRI, MXIM, BIG, MAMA, ONNN, BOBJ, SEPR, CIEN, MRVL, BRCM, KLAC, NVDA, LVLT, ORCL, GSS, CYTC, and FRPT. Stocks moving lower are PSPT, GMKT, ENCY, YHOO, LEND, ZQK, GIII, MPEL, LMRA, and DSTI.

When you see the perma-bears getting top coverage, it certainly sets up for a short-squeeze situation. The bulls have put on quite a show this week, though strong conviction has been absent. Will today's jobs report change that? I don't know, but it is clear that as long as stocks continue to rally, that confidence will increase that the recent decline was only a pause that refreshes, rather than the start of the big bad bear market.

Like yesterday, we'll see how the market performs following the positive gap and whether they'll be able to put the bears back in their dens on substantially higher volume. Have a great Friday!