The Market Tried To Pull Back, But........

The market did a pretty lousy job of pulling back. It looked like we were finally going to see a decent pullback this morning, but persistent strength in "junk" financials like FNM and AIG and some not-so-junky ones too, like BAC and JPM, squeezed the bears once again and kept any negativity from building.

It was a messy day of action with technology, oil and biotech weak but financials, REITs, base metals and some commodity names leading. Volume was heavy, especially on the NYSE, but breadth was negative with about 2,400 gainers to 3,350 decliners, which shows that it was fairly narrow strength today.

So overall, today was little more than a very minor blip in the furious uptrend. There were some pullbacks, but the strength in financials negated most of it. We now have the CSCO report, which is producing a few upticks but no big response after hours. However, it is guidance that counts, and that is yet to come.

There is intense focus on the jobs report that is due out on Friday morning, so we should see some positioning in front of that. Expectations seem to be quite high, so we have the potential for some big swings. Right now it is the financials that are driving things, and that is going to keep the bears unsettled...

long BAC