Stocks inched up Thursday ahead of the monthly jobs data to be released Friday morning. The S&P 500 gained 0.3% and the NASDAQ 0.5%, much of it coming in the last 30 minutes. On the S&P 500 the market has been extremely range bound this past week and as a tigher range is built eventually a breakout in either direction has to happen - of course the question is which way and what will cause it. Perhaps tomorrow's job report. Economists expect a gain of 93,000 in payrolls and an unchanged unemployment rate of 7.9 percent in November.
The S&P 500 is having a lot of trouble with the range seen below in orange from 5-6 weeks ago. If it can clear that the bulls should have the advantage.
The NASDAQ came back to touch the 200 day moving average, as Apple rebounded a bit today.
You can see the gyrations of the past week have helped work off the overbought conditions seen a week ago.
Yoga apparel maker Lululemon (LULU) had a huge day off of its earnings report.
- The company reported an 18% increase in third-quarter same-store sales, excluding the impact of currency translations. That compared with a 5.4% average increase for apparel retailers in the quarter, according to Retail Metrics.
- Online and other direct-to-consumer sales surged 89%. Total profit rose 48% to $57.3 million, or 39 cents a share, while sales surged 37% to $316.5 million, both above Wall Street expectations.
