Back To The Range

Good morning. Premarket futures are positive this morning as investors hope that yesterday's retest will hold and stocks will manage to bounce back into the multi-week trading range.

Along with more bond bailout chatter, Q4 productivity was revised up to 1.9% with unit labor costs (a primary inflation gauge) revised up to a 2.6% gain from 2.1%. Meanwhile, the ADP Employment Report came in worse than expected while Challenger's job cuts were less than anticipated ahead of Friday's jobs report.

Premarket gainers: CSIQ, CTIC, MFB, PANC, BIG, SCON, CAP, CYD, ALKS, SMTC, PCOP, PKTR, SOLF, DRYS, OMPI, JASO, CHINA, NVDA, ATML, ORCL, DIVX, MELI, and ESLR.

Premarket losers: PDLI, FTEK, CNIC, KONG, GU, AMSWA, XFML, IDSY, HLYS, TSRA, and MICC.

At 10:AM we have reports on factory orders and ISM services, the Energy Department will release data on crude oil inventories at 10:30, and at 2PM we have the Fed's Beige Book. Investors do not expect any good news from these reports. Commodities will again be in focus as oil prices try to hold the $100 level amid reports that OPEC is keeping production targets unchanged.

We know where the lines are in the sand within this trading range - yesterday's lows the support (S&P 1310ish) and last Wednesday's highs (S&P 1385ish) the resistance. It will also be interesting to watch whether sellers come out in the commodities again. Like yesterday, anything is certainly possible depending on what the rumor of the hour may be.

Have wonderful Wednesday!