Good morning! The market posted gains on Friday as a whole. The Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) rose 15.62 points. The S&P 500 ($SPX) climbed 0.96 point. The Nasdaq Composite ($COMPX) was the only one of the three to post a loss, and it was a mere 0.18 point. Earlier in the session, however, all of the indices had racked up strong gains following the premarket jobs data. The Labor Department reported an increase of 97,000 job last month, close to estimates, while the unemployment rate dropped unexpectedly from 4.6% to 4.5%.

The jobs data was the highlight of the session. Selling hit coming out of the open, falling for a few minutes, stalling, and then continuing at a stronger pace until the morning gap was filled between 10:00 and 10:15 ET. The selling came to a close at the 10:15 ET reversal period, which corresponded to previous price lows from Thursday, the 5 minute 200 sma in the Dow, and the 5 and 15 minute 200 sma in the S&P 500.

After a steep selloff from highs, the market tends to have a more difficult time correcting and it will lead to choppier trading. The indices still managed to take back half of the losses over the slower mid-day trading, but the momentum remained slower overall and the volume declined despite the rising prices. The action was particularly slow coming out of the 12:00 ET reversal period. This led into the last upside move mid-day, but it was more of a slow ascent as opposed to a true rally and it hugged the lower trend channel from the move off the lows. The breakdown triggered coming out of 12:30 ET.







As the market headed lower, it found support initially with the 5 minute 200 sma intraday again, just as it had earlier in the session, although the prices were a bit higher this time. There wasn't really a base or flag at that level, but instead it was more of a choppy congestion zone heading into the 5 minute 20 sma resistance. The downside then increased into 14:00 ET. It created an exhaustion move into the 15 minute 200 sma in the Dow and S&P 500 and Wednesday's lows in the Nasdaq.

The pace turned over again in the last two hours of the day, retesting the lows zone at 14:30 ET before breaking the downtrend channel going into that last 90 minutes of the session. The market popped back up into the 5 minute 20 sma, slowed, and then continued higher until it was back in the trading zone from late morning to early afternoon.

All in all, it was another rather choppy day when looking at the 5 minute time frame, although there was some decent activity on the 15 minute charts in the indices and the larger support and resistance levels held perfectly. There still wasn't much out there in terms of individual stocks though. A lot of the top gainers and losers were again issues that we don't see make that type of accomplishment very often. This means that players in the bigger, more heavily followed names were not willing to push things either way overall, which reflects greater underlying indecision.

The market continues to favor a larger range into the new week. In order to continue higher the indices need to break some rather significant resistance with all the daily moving averages that are converging overhead. This will not be an easy feat. On the downside the 200 day sma remains a strong support level.

Economic Reports and Events This Week
Monday: -
Tuesday:
7:45a.m. ICSC Chain Store Sales. Previous: -0.4%.
8:30a.m. Feb Retail And Food Sales. Previous: Unch.
8:30a.m. Feb Retail And Food Sales, Ex-Autos. Previous: +0.3%.
8:55a.m. Redbook Retail Sales Index. Previous: -1.1%.
10:00a.m. Jan Business Inventories. Previous: Unch.
5:00p.m. ABC/Wash Post Consumer Conf. Previous: -1.
Wednesday:
7:45a.m. MBA Refinancing Index. Previous: +15%.
8:30a.m. Feb Import Prices. Previous: -1.2%.
8:30a.m. 4Q Current Account Gap. Previous: $225.6B.
Thursday:
8:30a.m. Initial Jobless Claims. Previous: -10K.
8:30a.m. Feb Producer Price Index. Previous: -0.6%.
8:30a.m Feb Producer Price Index, Ex-Food & Energy. Previous: +0.2%.
8:30a.m. Mar NY Fed Manufacturing Index. Previous: 24.35.
9:00a.m. Jan Treasury Intl Capital Flows. Previous: -$11.0B.
10:00a.m. DJ-BTMU Business Barometer. Previous: -0.2%.
10:00a.m Mar Philadelphia Fed Business Index. Previous: 0.6.
Friday:
8:30a.m. Feb Consumer Price Index. Previous: +0.2%.
8:30a.m. Feb Consumer Price Index, Ex-Food & Energy. Previous: +0.3%.
9:15a.m. Feb Industrial Production. Previous: -0.5%.
9:15a.m. Feb Capacity Utilization. Previous: 81.2%.
10:00a.m. Mid-Mar Reuters/U Of Mich Sentiment Index. Previous: 91.3.

Key Earnings Announcements This Week
Monday: FS, IPAR, JAS, TACT
Tuesday: CALOY, SAM, DKS, GIGM, GS, GYMB, REV, SAPE, BKE, KR
Wednesday: CBM, HIBB, HOTT, JUPM, LEH, TRK, SSI
Thursday: ARO, BSC, BONT, CLE, LGND, PSUN, TRLG
Friday: ANN, KIRK
Note: All economic numbers and earnings reports are in lines with those compiled by Yahoo Finance and Briefing.com. Occasionally changes will occur that are made after the posting of this column. This list is not a complete list of earnings, so always double check your positions!

Toni Hansen is President and Co-founder of the Bastiat Group, Inc., and runs the popular Trading From Main Street. She can be reached at Toni@tradingfrommainstreet.com.