The market initially reacted to the weekly claims jump to 479,000 before settling into the trading range. There apparently were some seasonal adjustments in this number. However, investors are not really expecting great news from the employment sector. Stability is all we should hope for. The July number will be skewed by census workers. Therefore, the headline number won’t mean anything. We need to see what the private sector payrolls look like. Bloomberg has the consensus at 90,000 new private sector jobs. The unemployment rate might tick up to 9.6%, but as long as we stay below 9.8%, it shouldn’t be a shocker. The average hours worked is expected to remain unchanged. If we see just a 0.1% increase, it should be considered good news. Technically, the S & P and NASDAQ have moved up just shy of a breakout point. The S & P needs to get above 1130 and the NASDAQ above 2308. That would be possible on a good number. If we do get the positive breakout, stop loss levels should move up with the market advance. The S & P’s 200-day is at 1115 and its recent low is at 1119. We would advise using the market advance to lift all stop loss orders to higher levels. If the number fails to meet expectations, the S & P would need to break 1088 to break the string of higher lows. A close below 1099 would increase the risk that the resistance at 1130, short-term, will be difficult to overcome. Volume was non-existent yesterday, suggesting investors are poised to act on this number.