I Dub Thee Little Squishy

Yaawwwnnn!.....Oh sorry, did I do that out loud? The markets are in a two day narrow range bar consolidation off of the big move Tuesday. Worse than expected Weekly Jobless Claims and Downgrades in Financials were the bearish news, while a better than expected earnings report from RIMM, and a slightly better than expected ISM Services Report were the bullish news. I dumped the last little bit of my calls this morning and the JCP put I have from yesterday looks nice. I'm not sitting on very much at all right now because the market is fixated on the jobs. You could see the strongest reaction came after the Jobless Claims were released. It looks like traders are sitting and waiting for the big Employment Report tomorrow.

Basic Materials (Commodity Stocks), Energy, and Tech have been strong. Some Financials are still hanging in there as well. Semiconductors are the strongest area in Tech. Retail is a little weak.

My favorite news of the day was LEH lowering its earnings estimate for GS.....and GS turning right around and lowering its earnings estimates for LEH. They are tossing mud in each other's eyes right now in Brokerland. I was eating an apple when I read about it and nearly coughed up a chunk on my keyboard I was laughing so hard.....

There's not much to do right now as far as positioning for tomorrow. I would like more positions, but I've made great money the past week in calls and puts, and I'm content to just sit on a little like the rest of the market and see how it goes tomorrow. Whichever way we go outside the two day narrow range bars (or Doji's), we will probably go hard for at least a day - so I want some calls and puts in my back pocket for either scenario. My speculation is that we finish out the day like we are, and tomorrow's Jobs Report becomes the catalyst for the resolution of our two-day Narrow Range Bars and also possibly the resolution for whether or not we break out above 12,750 on the Dow or roll over the short term upswing. I will post a list of potential bullish or bearish plays later, besides what I already threw out the past few days.

Bullish List: I decided to nibble a little on ACI and CNX. There are a lot of strong areas in Commodities and Energy, so I'm nibbling in a little on RIG, MON, and POT. It sounds a little weird to say I'm nibbling on a little POT, but there it is.....

The markets just closed, and we did stay in the Narrow Range Bar, so it looks like it's all up to the Jobs Report tomorrow morning. I found it very interesting that Commodities and Energy were ramping up again today, so I nibbled in. I always go under the assumption that somebody else knows something I don't, so I speculate when I see chart signals. I didn't want to fill the backpack up to the top, because I'm not sure how much weight the market can carry tomorrow until I see the reaction to the Employment numbers.

Here are some bullish and bearish stocks:

Bullish:

Metals/Mining: WLT, ANR, POT (broke out today), RIO, CLF
Chemicals: CF, AGU, MON, MOS
(Aluminum: AA)
Steel: X, AKS
Copper: FCX (broke out today), PCU (broke out yesterday)
Coal: ACI, CNX (both bounced today)
Energy: PXP, NOV, ESV, RIG (broke out yesterday), MUR, SLB, APA, WFT, NE, SII
Tech: RIMM, ERTS, LRCX (and a bunch of other semiconductors)
Construction/Materials/Manufacturing: ERM, FWLT, CAT, FLR
Services: ESRX, PAYX, ADP
Utilities: FPL, SO, SRE
Homebuilders: RYL, CTX, KBH, (and a bunch of others)
Exchanges: ICE (and others)
Some Retail: NKE, WMT, GME, AMZN
Railroads: UPN, CSX
Transports: FDX, UPS, EXPD
Some Financials: PRU, HIG, MET, (AIG), PFG, AXP, COF, FNM, FRE

Bearish: (I am more interested in these IF the market rolls over)

Some Retail: JCP, TGT, JWN
Energy: SUN (on support break), VLO, (USO), XTO, EOG, ECA
Steel: NUE
Healthcare: HUM, AET (on support break)
Miscellaneous: LMT (on support break), MMM, BA

It will probably take a pretty big jump in the Unemployment Rate to 5.1% combined with a Non-Farms Payrolls loss of 60k-70k or greater to get the market to dump down tomorrow. If we get in-line or better numbers then the market may make a run to 12,750 - 12,800 on the Dow and 1,400 on the SPX for a couple of days (probably Friday and Monday). If that happens, I will add to my calls, monitor my one JCP put for a potential stop, and ride the calls up. If we go down hard, I will stop my calls and start picking up puts for the same type of couple-days long drop.