The four key indices lost ground this holiday shortened trading week which seemingly was spawned by the Federal Reserve’s indication the further quantitative easing may no longer be in the cards. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (chart) lost 1.15%, the Nasdaq (chart) -0.36%, the S&P 500 (chart) -0.74% and the Russell 2000 (chart) on the week pulled back the most declining 1.46%. The markets were closed yesterday in recognition of Good Friday, however, the March jobs report was released as scheduled and hiring for the month of March came in far less than economists expected. The economy added 120,000 jobs compared to the 200,000 plus expected by most.

I am expecting a knee jerk reaction to the downside from the markets on Monday and it will be interesting to see if stocks can shrug this economic report off? At the very least, volatility should pick up in earnest this month from not only this report, but from the highly anticipated first quarter earnings reporting season. To me this will be the key catalyst to determine wheter or not this bull keeps running.

Happy Easter 🙂

~George