Jobs, Etc.

Good morning. Contrary to expectations, U.S. December payrolls rose 167,000 and the jobless rate remained at 4.5%. Workers' average hourly earnings also rose 8 cents, or 0.5%, the most since April. Premarket futures, which still indicate weakness at the opening bell, have improved following the release of the report. Falling oil prices, weakness in overseas markets, Best Buy's same store sales report, a Q4 warning from Motorola (MOT) are also in focus.

Ahead of the opening bell, stocks trading higher in premarket trading include CPSL, MAMA, TASR, SGMO, DIVX, MEDI, URBN, HANS, BRLC, SHPGY, QGEN, HIHO, STEM, and APKT. Premarket losers are MTXX, RNOW, SPSN, SWKS, LPNT, RFMD, MLNM, CHINA, MRVL, BRCM, QCOM, INTC, and DELL.

The bulls really haven't taken 2007 by storm yet, but they haven't given up the ghost either. I'm sure traders are scrambling around trying to figure out how a strong jobs report changes things in terms of their expectations for an interest rate cut, but like usual the key tell will be from the market's performance itself. As we've seen this week, the inflows that come in at this time of the year also provide some support. Just don't tell that to the traders heavily long commodities.