Happy Friday everyone, and if you're a horse racing fan, it's the beginning of a very exciting weekend. The Kentucky Derby is being run at Churchill Down on Saturday, and this year's race should shape up as a good one. For what it's worth, I like Orb and Verrazano. Then again, who doesn't? They're the favored, and as such aren't really positioned for any kind of big betting payoff should they do well. Though they're a bit of a long shot, I've got a feeling Normandy Invasion, Revolutionary, and Vyjack could end up doing surprisingly well. And, the payoffs would actually be worth the risk. The weather forecast says there's an 80% chance of rain in Louisville for tomorrow. If the track is sloppy (and it looks like it will be), that could equalize things and make it anybody's guess who'll end up in the winner's circle. If it were me, I'd probably play a couple of exactas and trifectas just to make sure I had a decent shot at walking away with something. Speaking of winners, how about the market today? Of course, it was jobs data that sparked the rally, so we should actually start there. Unemployment Reality Check Yes, the unemployment rate fell to 7.5%, from the prior month's rate of 7.6%. The Department of Labor also said 176,000 nonfarm private jobs were created in April, which is far better than the 119,000 new payrolls that ADP said were added for the month when they shared numbers on Wednesday. For comparison, the DOL reported a revised figure of 154,000 new private payrolls for March, well up from the original estimate of 94,000. It all looks good on the surface. As we've talked about before though, these numbers don't tell the whole story. Other numbers investors should consider - but usually don't - is the size of the workforce compared to the size of the population. Or, looking at that data from a different angle, how many people are actually working versus how many folks want jobs? The number I'm most interested in is the labor participation rate... a comparison of the number of employed people versus the country's total populous. As it turns out, it barely budged, coming in at 58.6%. The total civilian labor force participation rate is also still anemic at 63.3%, and falling, in the grand scheme of things. The upside here is the fact that the total number of employed persons grew by 293,000 in April. But, that's still not enough to really light a fire under the economy. The point is, while the news you heard about today was good, the proverbial "rest of the story" says things aren't nearly as solid as traders seemed to believe today. That's not necessarily a totally bad thing though. Remember, as long as the employment picture and the economy seem to be struggling to make forward progress, the Fed's apt to keep on pumping. New Record Highs, But... Holy cow. There was no doubt about today. Stocks got started on the right foot and rallied right past prior peak levels and walked right into new-high territory like it was nothing. When it was all said and done, the market closed more than a full percentage point higher. There are only two way to interpret today's pop. Either this really is the beginning of a monster-sized breakout, or today's was a blowoff top. What's a blowoff top? Think of it as the opposite of a capitulation, or a last-hurrah for the rally. The only problem with the blowoff top rally theory is that the volume behind today's effort was just average. A true blowoff top would/should materialize on a volume surge. Either way, I can boil all of this down to one binary question: Do you trust the rally, or do you not? I still don't trust all this bullishness, for a couple of reasons. One of them is the fact that the S&P 500 (along with all the other indices) finally bumped into its upper 20-day Bollinger band today. We've seen repeatedly how this band line has been a ceiling, so it would be naive to blindly believe this time around will be different. The second reason I suspect the market's ready for a pullback is best seen on this weekly chart of the S&P 500. We mentioned to you a couple of weeks ago how the market was being guided higher by rising support and resistance lines that extend all the way back to November's low. But, each brush with that upper guideline has coincided with at least a stall, if not an outright pullback to the lower/support line. Care to guess what else the S&P 500 bumped into today? That's right - a long-term ceiling. All that being said, it would be wrong to think a day like today couldn't draw in a whole new batch of buyers. As we all know, the market can remain irrational longer than we can stay solvent. We'll just have to wait and see. The Coming Week If the combination of last week's earnings numbers, FDA announcements, and economic numbers was overwhelming, then we've got good new for you - the coming week is going to be a cakewalk. For starters, there's nothing in the lineup from the FDA. That's fine by us. On the economic news front, we're only getting eight pieces of information. And, I don't see any of them as important enough to be major market movers. The only one I think might matter at all is Tuesday's consumer credit levels for March. Thursday's unemployment claims may or may not have an impact; traders have grown fairly accustomed to the broad downtrend there. Earnings-wise, the pace of announcements is slowing down; there are only 43 earnings releases slated for next week. That's a lot, but a lot less than this past week. Here's a run-down of who's in the lineup. As of the last look, a little more than 2/3 of the S&P 500's companies have reported, and the S&P 500 is on pace to earn $26.20 for the first quarter, up from the $26.14 the index was on pace to earn just last week. That's also (still) way better than the $25.49 the pros were expecting before earnings season started. Nobody's more amazed about that than me. That's it for now. Have a great weekend. We'll be back in the saddle on Monday. In the meantime, here's a special offer from the SmallCap Network Elite Opportunity. Or, copy and paste the following link in your browser: http://www.smallcapnetwork.com/?vmpd_ckstr[click_track]=SCN+Newsletter&vmpd_ckstr_redirect=/pages/SCNEO/v1/