Here we go for Friday!

Futures ahead of the Jobs number are quite strong. DOW up about 40ish.

The danger of shorting in this market reared its head again. Yahoo and Microsoft - a combination that I would say "you're out of your @#$@#! mind" to - is being bandied about again. Well, if you were short Yahoo - a particularly logical thing to do given Yahoo's death-rattle recently - you just got butt*****d. One of the most active stocks in the premarket, its up nearly 20% on a RUMOR. Mister Softee, on the other hand, is trading down. (Gee, 'ya think?)

The jobs report is..... up 88,000 -unemployment 4.5%, hourlys up 0.2%.

Lowest monthly figure since November 2004. February and March revised down 26000.

This is a very weak number.

Unemployment up a bit to 4.5 (from 4.4). Health care gained 37,000 jobs, social assistance was up 10,000. Food service (servers) up 25,000.

Construction had little change (gee, you think the illegals don't get counted?) Manufacturing employment declined, and was actually stronger than it should have been due to a strike that ended (accounting for 6,500 jobs). Retail trade was down 26,000 net. Finance and insurance lost 14,000.

Hours worked were also off by 0.4%.

Hourly wages rose 0.2%.

This is clearly bad, as it indicates that the "good jobs" are going away, the housing slowdown is hitting the employment numbers and more importantly it is confirmation that consumer spending is slowing down - as has been indicated by all the warnings recently - as retail is losing jobs. The market basically ignored the number - yet more evidence that the market is simply ignoring the fundamentals. Weakness in retail is not good at all, and neither are the downward revisions to the previous months - the first time that has happened in a long time.

Oh, and if you'd like some sort of outside data, here's a nice quote:

"The separate survey of households showed employment fell sharply by 468,000 jobs in April. This is the biggest drop since November 2002. Unemployment rose by 77,000 to 6.80 million. The civilian labor force declined by 392,000."

Aieeeeee....

One more thing - check out this article from the WSJ this morning:

"In the latest fallout from the housing market's decline, disputes are breaking out between builders and buyers who signed contracts for new homes and condos when the market was hot -- and now want to get out of them."

"Let's sue our builder! What a great idea!" Oh boy.

Given the futures, I expect we open considerably higher. Be careful trading into this - the obvious reality here is that retail investors have been sitting out this "recovery" since February - they are very likely to rush back in just in time to catch the top and have their portfolios destroyed when the rollover happens!

If you're in long, enjoy it but be wary. If you're on the sidelines and decide to trade this, you need to be very, very cautious.

As pointed out above, trying to trade this market on the short side, while likely to prove correct over time, is a definite high-wire act right now. Get caught in the wrong company at the wrong time and you're going to get your head handed back to you on a plate - before you realize its missing!