Stocks closed higher yesterday across the board with the S&P making a new all-time high close and the Nasdaq putting in their second highest close ever. The small-cap Russell 2000 had a great day as well, gaining 1.26% and making a new YTD high close.

After a shaky start to the week on Tuesday, all of the indexes are back in the green and look poised to end the week on a high note.

But that's if this morning's Employment Situation report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) is cooperative. Non-farm payrolls are expected to come in at 77,000 new jobs for last month (75,000 in the private sector and 2,000 in the public), with the unemployment rate ticking up to 4.3% vs. last month's 4.2%.

Not a great number. But good enough for economic growth. And, quite frankly, the number the market would like to see. That's because it would underscore the Fed's recent narrative that the risk to the labor market has increased vs. inflation, and why the Fed is likely to cut rates in 2 weeks.

A soaring employment report with sharply higher job gains would counter that, and possibly cause the Fed to pause yet again.

So, all eyes will be on this morning's report. That comes out at 8:30 AM ET.

If yesterday's ADP Employment report is any foreshadowing for what this morning's BLS report will say, we'll likely get closer to what's expected. Yesterday's consensus was calling for 68,000 private sector jobs to have been created last month, and ended up reporting 54,000. While the ADP report has a poor track record and forecasting what the BLS report will show, it does suggest an unlikelihood of a dramatic upside surprise.

In other news yesterday, the Challenger Job-Cut report came in at 85,979 announced layoffs vs. last month's 62,075.

Weekly Jobless Claims rose 8,000 to 237,000 vs. views for 232,000.

The PMI Composite report showed the Composite Index slipped to 54.6 vs. last month's 55.4 and estimates for the same. The Services Index eased to 54.5 vs. last month's 55.4 and estimates for the same as well.

The ISM Services Index, however, improved to 52.0 vs. last month's 50.1 and forecast for 50.5.

Even though earnings season is officially over, we heard from Broadcom after the close yesterday and they posted a positive EPS surprise of 1.81%, and a positive sales surprise of 0.78%. That translated to a quarterly EPS growth rate of 36.3% vs. this time last year, and a sales growth of 22.0%. They also raised revenue guidance for Q4 by 2.23% above the consensus. If that comes to fruition, that would equate to a quarterly sales growth 23.8% vs. this time last year, and a sequential increase of 9.02% vs. last qtr. They also cited a recent $10 billion order for their AI chips, and said it will add to their strong AI revenue outlook for next year as well. They were up 1.23% in the regular session before earnings, and were up more than 4% in after-hours trade following earnings.

It's been a short week this week, but a solid one for the markets, so far.

If all goes well, it will end that way. And tee up the markets for another winning week next week.

Best,