Happy Friday, one and all. I tell you what... I know the weather forecast isn't great for some of you for the next couple of days, but this is the first weekend in a long time where the weather doesn't look completely miserable for any of you. There's some snow in the cards for parts of the Midwest on Saturday, but it doesn't look like anything stifling. Yes, it's finally beginning to look a little like springtime.... at least until Wednesday, when yet-another wave of snow showers is going to hit parts of the Northeast. You have to give credit to Punxsutawney Phil, who pretty much nailed it this year. Anyway, the market was fairly lethargic today, despite what mostly looked like encouraging news on the jobs front. Still, it was a pretty fruitful session for the newsletter's portfolio. Let's get that look at our picks out of the way first. Portfolio Update If you trade, or even just follow, the trading ideas we publish here in our free newsletter, then you probably already know Cooper Cos. (COO) beat earnings estimates when the news was released yesterday afternoon. The medical supply company earned $1.47 per share, topping the outlook of $1.46, and blowing the year-ago number of $1.23 out of the water. Revenue was up 7% to boot, beating estimates by about a percentage point. Gross margins as well as net margins were both higher by a couple of percentage points. I'm not surprised. One of the things we told you from the get-go about Cooper was that it produced hyper-reliable growth even if it wasn't hyper-speed growth. We don't expect shares of COO to dole out triple-digit gains in just a few weeks - it's just not that kind of trade. It's still a good trade though. You can't be wildly aggressive with every single dollar in your portfolio. As for the stock, it was up about 5% as of print-time for today's edition, though it had been up as much as 10% at one point. That's ok. We can live with a 5% pop for one day, and I've got a feeling that, now that the bulls have tipped their hand, we're going to get some bullish traction come next week. Though there wasn't any news from it today, our newest addition to the portfolio - Frontier Communications (FTR) - followed through pretty nicely on the reversal we tapped into with Wednesday's newsletter [which means you could have gotten in on Thursday morning]. With this second day of bullishness now under our belt, I think FTR is sending the message to the market that we want it to send. The $4.97 area is a major ceiling here, but if Frontier Communications can break above that mark, the stock should be catapulted. And, I've got a feeling that's what the bulls have planned. The only real complaint we've got is with CubeSmart (CUBE), which was off about 3.0% for no apparent reason on Friday. Even then, though, we can't complain too much. Our trade's still up about 2%, which means we have some wiggle room. I'm going to keep a close eye on CUBE for you, but honestly, today's drop from CubeSmart was so (relatively) dramatic, I have a hard time thinking we won't see a sharp rebound on Monday. Here's where we stand with all seven positions right now. We'll have a new batch of potential trades to add to the watchlist on Monday or Tuesday of the coming week. Employment Reality Well, I'm not going to be able to show you the usual chart of all the key employment information today. I'm in the middle of switching out computers, and the software as well as the historical data is in between the two right now. I should have that chart ready to roll by Monday, however, so we'll look at it then. In the meantime, there are a couple of key points to be made about today's report. First and foremost, how does the unemployment rate move from 6.6% to 6.7% when we added 175,000 new jobs in February? Because a lot more than 175,000 people officially put themselves back into the workforce. As of the end of February, there are 155.724 million people in the United States who are working or want to work. That's up by 264,000 from January's reading of 155.460 million. As for what it means to you, it just means there still aren't enough jobs to go around. For what it's worth, there are 145.266 million employed people in the U.S. right now, only up 42,000 from January's levels. The number of unemployed people grew by 223,000, up from January's 10.236 million to 10.459 million last month. No, none of the numbers really jive with the figure of 175,000 new payrolls that the DOL reported, no matter how you slice and dice them. That's because the calculations are relatively independent of one another, and always a bit wonky. Don't sweat it. We're not trying to check the government's math here. We're just trying to get a broad feel for things, and the way they feel as of February isn't particularly strong. Whatever the case, the two most important numbers are numbers you're not hearing from any other media source.... the labor force participation rate, and the employment-to-population ratio. Both are still pretty weak at this time. Only 63.0% of the population is officially in the workforce, which is just a tad above the multi-year low level of 62.8% seen in December. And, the employed/population ratio is now at 58.8%, just a little above October's multi-year low of 58.2%. The bottom line is, while this morning's numbers were viewed as mostly positive, the jobs picture still isn't strong enough to let the economy achieve a good escape velocity. I'll have the chart for you early next week, just because the visual representation of this data tells the story a lot better than words can. Fizzle A lower low, higher high, and a close right where we left off yesterday? Yeah, traders aren't quite sure what to do here, so they tested the waters on both sides of the fence and then ultimately decided to do nothing. I have to attribute most of the stagnation to the fact that today was a Friday, and we're heading into a weekend with some decent weather. Take a look. So what's next? We're still bullish. Honestly though, I think I'd prefer to see the market pull back just a bit before taking another swing. That should bleed off any of the overbought pressure that's still lingering from Tuesday's surge. Remember, as long as the S&P 500 doesn't slip under the 1849 area (where the 20-day moving average line is going to be early next week), the rally's going to remain intact. Notice how the VIX's Bollinger bands are starting to squeeze in real tight on the VIX. The S&P 500's Bollinger bands are closing in real fast too, but they aren't clamping down the way the VIX is getting boxed in. I suspect it's a sign that some volatility is brewing; the VIX tends to start moving in a huge way right about the time it gets trapped in a tight range, like we saw in mid-January. I'm hoping the explosion is a bullish one for stocks, although there's not a lot of room for the VIX to push lower from where it is right now. Whatever's in the cards, let's table the discussion until Monday. We need to see who comes out swinging early next week before making a firm call anyway, as we ended Friday's session right on the fence.