Markets opened strongly this morning, presumably boosted by the unemployment claims data. SPX jumped about $6 out of the box and then climbed a bit more in afternoon trade. What was a little surprising was a bump of over a dollar in literally the last minute of trading. On the one minute chart, SPX had traded down to $1562 and then jumped to a little over $1563 in that last minute. I'm not sure what caused that last minute spurt. SPX closed at $1563, up $9 and just under its all time high of $1565. RUT showed the same last minute spurt and closed up $9 at $953. Trading volume was up from yesterday, but remains relatively low. Trading in the S&P 500 came in at 2.2 billion shares as compared to the 50 dma at 2.6B. Trading on the NYSE was up 13% and trading volume on NASDAQ was up 5%.

The initial unemployment claims came in at 332k, down 10k and this surprised analysts who were predicting a good result, but not quite this good. Continuing unemployment claims also dropped to 3.0 million, down 89 thousand.

I will be watching tomorrow to see what happens if SPX punches through $1565 or hesitates before making that break-out. No one can deny the strength of this bull market, but one has to worry about the potential bad news out of Washington with respect to the debt ceiling debates and the debt rating agencies standing in the wings. I continue to be concerned about a sudden and severe pull back. We'll see.