All anyone could talk about yesterday was the coming jobs report. Estimates ran as low as 85k, but very few exceeded the actual reported number of 175k. The Labor Force Participation rate remains at historic lows, but at least it didn't decrease farther. The unemployment rate blipped up to 6.7%. All in all, one would have thought it was off to the races for the bulls, and it was, for a few minutes. SPX bounced off support at $1870 around 11 am ET, but strengthened thereafter to close at $1878, up one dollar for the day. RUT lost one dollar to close at $1203. VIX opened lower at 13.5% but ended the day at 14.1%, close to unchanged from yesterday.

Doji candlesticks appeared today on both the SPX and the RUT charts. This underscores the relative balance between the bulls and bears that we have seen over the past several sessions. Consider today's session; the bulls took off on a strong jobs report this morning, but were immediately pulled downward by the bears. SPX hit $1870 and the bulls came back to the party and pushed it back up to end the day basically unchanged. I think it is important to note RUT's contrasting behavior; RUT has now decreased for the last three days. Admittedly, it hasn't dropped very far, but it still makes me wonder. At a minimum, it supports the sideways trading range we have been observing.

I will be interested to see what Monday brings.

Enjoy your weekend.