The jobs report this morning was the last market moving event in a full week. The report disappointed the street with 162 thousand new jobs. The unemployment rate dropped to 7.4%, but many analysts brushed that away with concerns about a record low in the Labor Force Participation Rate, and the fact that many of the reported new jobs are part time, not full time.

The more positive number of 200k jobs reported by ADP earlier in the week didn’t correlate very well with the jobs report and this probably was a large part of the market’s disappointment – their expectations had been built up. You can see evidence of that in the bullish trading late in the day yesterday.

SPX closed at $1710, up $3 and RUT closed at $1060, flat on the day. Today’s disappointing jobs report would have sunk a weak market, but it couldn’t sink this market, with today’s closes matching or beating yesterday’s closes. So the economic environment may be weak, but the bullish market trend continues.

Volatility hit a recent low with a VIX reading of 12%. One has to go back to mid-March to find a lower value of VIX. One can view that as a bullish indicator, i.e., traders are confident the uptrend will continue. Or one can view this as a low before the VIX spikes upward, i.e., the calm before the storm.

Many analysts are skeptical of this bullish market because the underlying economic data are so weak. But one must remember that the corporate earnings this quarter have largely beat estimates. This economic recovery is certainly the weakest in history by a long shot, but companies are making money and that drives share prices.

Have a great weekend. Next week looks to be a slow week in terms of economic data, but we'll see if that correlates with a calm market. After all, this week didn't have the fireworks I would have predicted.