Market up in spite of the jobs report

This week is a good example of why I like to step back each weekend, ignore the headlines and find out what the market really did. Friday afternoon as soon as the jobs report came out several popular newsletter writers cried Chicken Little -- " The sky is falling --- you'd better short the market!". The market didn't seem to skip a beat.

As usual I go to Barchart to get my data and I like the Value Line Index because it contains 1700 stocks making it much broader than the S&P 500 or the very narrow Dow 30. Let's see how the market did.

Value Line Index -- contains 1700 stocks - up 3.70% for the week -- seems bullish

• The index closed above it's 20, 50 & 100 day moving averages
• Barchart's 13 technical indicators have 12 buy signals for a 96% overall buy rating
• The index has had a price appreciation on 13 of the last 20 trading sessions and also 5 of the last 5

Barchart market momentum -- contains approximately 6000 stocks -- the percentage of stocks closing above their daily moving averages for various time periods -- again a bullish sign

• 20 DMA -- 79.65% close above
• 50 DMA -- 85.10% closed above
• 100 DMA -- 79.87% closed above

The ratio of stocks hitting new highs to stocks hitting new lows for various time frames -- 1.0+ bullish, 1.0 neutral, below .99 bearish -- This week bullish for all 3 periods

• 20 day -- 1862 highs/lows 296 = 6.59
• 65 day -- 1050 highs/lows 488 = 2.15
• 100 day -- 904 highs/lows 89 = 10.16

Summary -- I think the market did very well and never missed a beat even after a negative jobs report. To be fair I'd like you to read the contrary opinion by Michael Shulman in his article -- The jobs numbers: Time to go short. Next week I will trim any stock that fails to maintain a closing price above its 50 day moving average and as long as the market keeps on trucking I'll add new positions that meet my criteria.

Over on Wall Street Survivor the Top Stock contributors that make stock recommendations still maintain their model portfolios. This month 4 of the 8 have beaten the market and so far this month my return of 5.60% vs. the S&P 500 return of 2.68% put me in 1st place for the month so far. The rest of the guys know what they are doing so I might not be first for long.

Disclosure: I do not hold positions in any of the stocks in my Wall Street Survivor portfolio.

Jim Van Meerten is an investor who writes on financial matters here and on Financial Tides. Please leave a comment below or email JimVanMeerten@gmail.com.