It was another nice pop on Thursday into the close. Stocks that lose these days are taking extra punishment; hence the fact that the down volume was almost equal to the up volume on the New York Stock Exchange. However, the winner’s circle is building with close to 500 stocks, closing at new 52-week highs on the NYSE and the NASDAQ.

By the way, there is growing noise about the market being too enthusiastic, and the moves being too powerful to last. Check out the chart from Bespoke Extracts (BSPK). The historical norms of an average up day are +0.73% (the average down day, -0.73%); the DJIA +0.74%, S&P +0.67, and the NASDAQ +0.81%. 

Big Jobs Day

I think we’ll see a number north of 200,000; more importantly, I expect non-supervisory wages to continue to power ahead of the overall wage gains. Secondly, I want to see strong labor force gains to keep pushing up the employment-to-population ratio – the all-time high is within sight.

Portfolio Approach

We add to new position to Consumer Discretionary yesterday.  We are raising our weighting on Consumer Discretionary to a 4 weight and reducing Cash to 0.  To learn more about our Hotline service click here or email us at research@wstreet.com.

Today’s Session

The jobs report came in slightly less than expected at 145,000 against consensus of 160,000.   Overall, it’s a solid number; although, I was hoping for better numbers from goods producing jobs:

• Manufacturing -12,000
• Mining -8,000
• Construction +20,000

Hourly wages have an asterisk attached because of the timing of the survey and probably are higher than the numbers posted this morning.

There were great highlights including:

• Labor force +209,000
• Working part time for economic reasons -140,000
• Diffusion index 57, which is positive but dragged down by manufacturing diffusion to 44.7 from 65.8

Real Unemployment Report

U-6 is the total unemployed, plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force, plus total employed part time for economic reasons, as a percent of the civilian labor force plus all persons marginally attached to the labor force.

The U6 is at a record all-time low.