NFP Knee Jerk... Maybe Not Sufficiently Bad Enough?

Figuring the market's reaction (especially on a Friday Op-EWx Max Pain pin) to the NFP is a tough one, there's the "Buy stocks, the economy is improving crowd", there's the "We want a miss and an un-taper crowd" and then there's the only crowd that really matters, the bond market that doesn't know what to think about Yellen and thus far isn't convinced that forward rate guidance is ANY different than the original, "RATE HIKE 6 MONTHS AFTER THE END OF QE" because when you break down the last F_O_M_C and Yellen's first disaster (press conference) and do the math, that's exactly what you get, the first rate hike 6 months after the end of the QE taper/QE which is the same guidance the F_E_D originally gave before the taper started even though they played this big game of new forward guidance that is now qualitative rather than quantitative, but thee "DOT PLOT" and Yellen's comments say otherwise and as I said, in the end, it's the bond market's opinion that counts and right now, there's not a lot of faith there.

So, if you somehow missed this morning's NFP, the miss of 200k and miss of an UE rate of 6.6% with a print at 192k and 6.7%, up from February's revised 197k and the same 6.7% UE rate, the initial reaction was a typical QE-Taper off, gold up, Dollar down, stocks up and Treasuries up was quickly faded...

ES/SPX E-mini futures...

The opening confirmation/non confirmation looked like this that suggested an un-fade (which may all be Max Pain Pin related)...

 DIA "almost " confirmed, but put in a small positive on the downside fade...

The IWM "almost" confirmed which is kind of a big deal being it didn't have that far to go, and also put in a small un-fade positive at the a.m. lows.

 The Q's CLEARLY did NOT confirm and you see the reaction there, the Q's are still trading in line as they were right after the non-confirmation fade.

The SPY was the only one to confirm and is still trading in line, which looks (so far) like an op-ex pin on the weeklies.

As far as the NFP, it has been averaging 183k a month for the last 12 months, prior to December the average for the previous 12 months was 205k, the last several months (actually 3) averaged 129k.

Unbelievably the print was DARN close to ADP's on Wednesday of 191k vs a revised 178k for February. Yesterday's ISM employment sub-index was weak, but some how DB's Joe LaVorgna came out with his consensus of a 275k print and the UE rate at 6.5%! Talk  about a FAIL.

In any case, you know we had that intentional VERY short term put in the SPY that we opened Wednesday and closed yesterday (by design) because the data I saw suggested a quick flop yesterday, but there wasn't much reason to hold beyond yesterday with what I could see for the very near term.

Since early trade moves around so much I'm going to put this out and then I'm going to put out the most current near term trade expectations, give me about 10 mins.