Today's trading session was a sort of "lame duck" session - most traders were on vacation and many left early on Wednesday since trading closed at 1 pm ET. So it wasn't too surprising to watch the market open with bullish enthusiasm, fail to reach new highs, fall back significantly, and then rally into the close. Extreme price volatility is much easier in the midst of low trading volumes. SPX opened and quickly traded up to the 50 dma at $1626 and then retreated back to $1615. As the day wore on, the bulls regained their strength and SPX broke through the 50 dma to close at $1632, up $16. RUT closed up $14 at $1005, a new all-time high. Trading volume figures didn't mean much today with comparison to a half day of trading and with low volumes both Wednesday and today (only 1.6 billion shares of the S&P 500 traded today).

The Labor Department reported 195k new jobs in the non-farm payroll report, which was a pretty good number and was on the high side of estimates, but unemployment remains at 7.6%. I think the market pull back earlier today was a result of traders thinking this will guarantee the Fed will begin to curtail their stimulus programs. The key question will be whether these new highs can be held next week.

Enjoy your weekend.