The market is rallying again in early trading after a much better jobs report than the consensus was looking for. Nonfarm payrolls for August fell 54,000 but that was far less than the 120,000 that was expected. Moreover, private payrolls rose 67,000, which was considerably stronger than the 44,000 expected gain.

The other night, I watched a couple episodes of the A&E documentary series Hoarders. For those of you who haven’t seen it, Hoarders is a documentary series that focuses on the struggles of people who suffer from compulsive hoarding.

If you have read the international papers, you may know that there are two political developments that is worth paying attention to.

Yesterday, the market chopped around for most of the day after a huge run-up Wednesday. That was an encouraging sign for bulls. By late afternoon, the market rallied and it closed on its highs. Earlier in the day, initial jobless claims came in slightly better-than-expected and optimism ahead of the Unemployment Report surfaced. Even though 472,000 jobless claims were filed, traders were relieved that new claims have stopped rising. In recent weeks, initial jobless claims have spiked higher and that trend has stalled.

Oil prices were off slightly as investors digested the latest US Employment Report, falling by 35 cents at $74.67 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. On Thursday, oil gained $1.11 to $75.02 a barrel.

Oil prices have traded between $70 and $80 for most of the past year as the global economy recovered from last year’s recession, but developed countries struggled to regain strong growth. U.S. crude and fuel inventories have remained high, suggesting the demand for fuel remains sluggish.

I said I'd be looking to add some long exposure but that does not mean I am not going to sell some as well; what I want to do is sell some of the overextended names and buy some things that are not so overbought.  This way I can keep a decent long bias, but just change the mix of names & exposures.

Here are some sales (I've included Relative Strength index in the chart to show one signal of 'overbought')

I'm selling half of remaining Acme Packet (APKT) near $36 and will look to buy back on a pullback.

Chart of The Day: "Except for a brief counter-trend rally in July, the stock market has struggled since peaking in late April. Investors are concerned. For some perspective, today's chart presents the Dow's average performance for each calendar month since 1950. As today's chart illustrates, it is not unusual for the stock market to underperform during the May to October time frame with a brief counter-trend rally occurring in July.

It has been a very telling day as I said this morning it would be.  ISM Services just came in at 51.5 versus expectation of 53 and previous month's 54.3.  Again, ISM Manufacturing gets all the press as if we still live in the economy of 40 years ago, but ISM Services is the much more representative report.  The S&P 500 sold off an entire 1.5 points on the knee jerk reaction.  Two weeks ago ...heck earlier this week, this would of caused a 2% swoon.

Executives at Time Warner Cable (NYSE: TWC), Comcast (Nasdaq: CMCSA) and privately-held Cox Communications have taken their customers for granted for far too long.
Even as consumer income has barely kept up with inflation in recent years, cable bills soar ever higher. Here in upstate New York, Time Warner gets $130 from me every month so I can get high-speed Internet access, a DVR and far more channels than I ever bother to watch. I have long vowed to cut the cord, as soon as it was practical.
That day is finally here. Technologies are rolling out that will expand consumer's choices.

Sterling in currency trading

The U.K. pound is still struggling overall in forex trading on the currency market. Earlier today, sterling saw a sell off in currency trading.

However, for now, the U.K. pound appears to be doing better. The better than expected payrolls data out of the U.S. appears to be helping high beta currencies as risk appetite returns.