General
The major market indexes all broke out to their highest levels since 2008 and the highest levels since the market lows of March 2009. Leading stocks continue to march higher, with fresh breakouts expanding the number of stocks participating in the rally. Overall, the tone of the market remains very bullish going into next Thursday's Fed meeting announcement.Job growth slowed sharply in August, the Labor Department said Friday. Total nonfarm payrolls increased by 96,000, lower than the 125,000 gain expected by Wall Street economists. Adding to the sense of weakness, job growth in the past two months were revised down by 41,000. The unemployment rate declined to 8.1% in August from 8.3% in the previous month but the drop was due to workers dropping out of the workforce. Economists forecast the unemployment rate to hold steady at 8.3%.
Gold and silver rallied on the news further extending their gains, and for now we would only look to be buyers on pullbacks by the metals to their 200-day moving averages, roughly 1646 for gold and 30.39 for silver. This translates to 159.73 on the SPFR Gold Shares (GLD) and 29.53 on the iShares Silver Trust (SLV).
Stocks
Apple (AAPL) also appears poised to move higher as it rests along its own 10-day moving average, and we would look for a similar continuation pocket pivot to emerge from its current position on its price chart.
Bio-techs, the #2 ranked group in this market, have displayed great strength recently as we have reported on individual stocks to members. This has been confirmed by breakouts in big-stock bio-techs while smaller names continue to make moves towards or into all-time high price ground.