There was more of a sideways movement for the market on Wednesday. Investors are clearly looking for the next catalysts, which could be the jobs report on Friday. The initial reaction to the ADP National Employment Report sent major indices higher out the gate, and it could be a harbinger for the governmental version.

Meanwhile, a lot of questions remain, including what the final version of the GOP tax bill looks like, and the likelihood that some last-minute horse-trading will result in a final corporate tax rate of 22%.  I always have suspected the final number to be between 22% and 25%, so it shouldn’t be a major surprise. Be that as it may, with the hand-wringing and fearmongering, much will be made of the broken promise of 20%.

I’m very excited we can see the finish line without dealing with any last minute GOP shenanigans, which could trip this up.  Right???

We saw some re-rotation back into technology names – believe it or not, there are a lot of oversold high-flyers. 

Bitcoin

Of course, the biggest rotation is that of excitement from stocks to Bitcoin (BTC). Yesterday was another exciting day for the cryptocurrency, which rallied 13% to $13,214, bringing its total value to $220.9 billion (which puts it right outside the top-ten most valuable companies in the S&P 500). Wells Fargo (WFC) is number 10 at $242 billion.

Today’s Session

Initial claims continue to decline.  For the week ending December 2, claims were 236,000 down 2,000.  A better gauge, the four-week moving average decreased by 750 to 241,500.  Continuing claims are also lower, down 52,000 to 1.908 million for the week ending November 25, while the four-week average was up by 1,000 to 1,912,750.  This is now 144 consecutive weeks that initial claims have been under 300,000.  Now all eyes are on Friday’s job report. 

The markets opened in the green, but just slightly.  Let’s stay on the sidelines and see how the morning trades.