Markets were higher early but as the day wore on sellers appeared taking the market to red until a late “stick save” pushed the DOW green for the win.

After all the media loves to cheer the DOW since this is what Main Street watches most.

News overall Thursday wasn’t substantial. The massive wild fire in Canada helped push crude oil higher as panicked buying ensued out of the gate. After all buyers assumed there would no crude oil available forever. But, most thought it would shut supplies to 500K barrels—not a big deal in the scheme of things.

Economic data Thursday included a substantial jump in Employment Claims to 274K vs prior 257K; Chain Store Sales were very weak; and, Challenger Job Cuts were much higher to 65,141 vs prior 48,207. with little else to move the needle one way or another. Meanwhile economic data from China continues to worry future global GDP growth.

The dollar rallied once again which hurt commodity prices save crude oil. But gold was hurt by the dollar gains.

All eyes will be on Friday’s Employment Report. It should be interesting given a weak ADP Employment Report on the heels of Thursday’s weaker Jobless Claims data. 

Below is the heat map from Finviz reflecting those ETF market sectors moving higher (green) and falling (red). Dependent on the day (green) may mean leveraged inverse or leveraged short (red).

Volume was extraordinarily light and breadth per the WSJ was negative.

Chart Of The Day

As said, the Employment Report tomorrow, and as before, will give pundits plenty of opportunity to spin whatever the market reaction is. It can be amusing. Let’s see what happens