Bounce?

Stocks bounded higher Thursday thanks to a jump in manufacturing activity and growing confidence that Ireland will resolve its debt crisis. Most eyes were glued on General Motors, an American icon which re-emerged from bankruptcy in the largest initial public offering in U.S. history. Its shares, trading under the symbol GM, rose 3.6 percent to $34.19. GM's stock amounted to 9.7 percent of all shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Stocks got an early boost from a surprisingly strong reading on manufacturing from the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. The report said factory orders in the mid-Atlantic region expanded at the fastest rate since December. Bond prices fell, pushing their yields higher. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.90 percent from 2.87 percent late Wednesday. The yield on the note, which is a widely used benchmark for consumer and business loans, traded as low at 2.49 percent on Nov. 4. The dollar fell 0.6 percent against an index of six currencies.

As mentioned in our previous posts, we were anticipating a move higher and boy did we get it. The market worked off its oversold condition today and with the ES closing in on 1200, we will be looking to establish new short positions across the board starting as early as tomorrow morning. A break above ES 1210-1214 will change our near-term outlook back to bullish.