Trust the trend...Rudolph is on steroids this year...
Market Update
12:00 pm : Albeit initially struggling to fully embrace today's encouraging employment report, more evidence to suggest the soft landing targeted by the Fed remains on track is now supporting typical end-of-year bullishness.
Given the Fed's increased policy guidance from "incoming" data, today's jobs report being the last key piece of data policy makers will get their hands on before they reconvene next Tuesday has garnered added attention.
Before the bell, the Labor Dept. showed that nonfarm payrolls rose 132K in November (consensus 105K) while payrolls figures for October and September were upwardly revised to account for a net gain of 42K new jobs. With investors concerned about the pace of economic growth, continued payroll gains will keep consumer spending rising at a decent clip, especially as there is also moderate wage growth. Hourly earnings rose just 0.2%, below the 0.3% economists were anticipating.
Strong upside leadership from the majority of S&P industry groups is also providing a floor of buying support. Of the nine economic sectors trading higher, Technology is pacing the way as two days of profit taking sparks some bargain hunting interest and helps investors look past some warnings in the chip space. Xilinx (XLNX 25.05 -1.39) is plunging 5.3% after lowering its Q3 sales forecasts. Apple Computer (AAPL 89.04 +2.00) recouping most of the 3.0% it lost yesterday is among the sector's best performers (+2.3%).
Providing the bulk of current support, though, is the Financials sector. Dow component Citigroup (C 52.31 +1.60) soaring 3.2% to a new 52-week high is the biggest reason the rate-sensitive sector has been able to overlook a sell-off in Treasuries. Bond yields are rising across the yield curve after the
