Welcome to the weekend, friends and fellow traders. As you can probably imagine, we've got a lot of stuff to get through today. So, let's just dig in and get started with the item most likely on your mind right now... the rest of the story on this morning's employment report. The Rest of the Employment Story First and foremost, of all the things to worry about on the jobs front, today's slight uptick in the unemployment rate (from 5.6% to 5.7%) is the one I'm worried about the least. The broad downtrend is still in place. And, we're seeing progress on other fronts that could actually put some near-term upward pressure on the unemployment rate. It's a good thing in the long run though. From the beginning... The unemployment rate is calculated by dividing the number of people who are in the work force but don't have a job by the number of total people in the workforce. It can be a somewhat deceptive number, however, because for a long while millions of people were not technically in the labor pool but did actually want a job; they had just given up. Well, the bulk of the reason the unemployment rate went up a bit last month was the sharp rise in the size of the labor forces itself. Technically speaking, there were still more total people employed at the end of last month (148.2 million) than there were at the end of December. The other key measure of employment health (to us, anyway) is the degree to which people are participating in it. In fact, they're called participation rates. The top portion of our chart below shows the percentage of the population that's in the labor force (employed or not). The bottom portion show the percentage of the population that's actually working. While we have to give these trends a little leeway for the retirement of the abnormally-large Baby Boomer group, that doesn't explain all this weakness below. Still, we're seeing some progress. The employment/population ratio tends to lead the labor force/population ratio, so there's reason to be encouraged by this chart. Last but not least, job-creation numbers. We already had ADP's employment change from Wednesday, which was less than hoped. The Department of Labor threw us a pleasant curveball though, reporting the addition of 257,000 new jobs versus expectations of only 235,000. Here's an updated look at both trends. Our take on the overall employment snapshot is, while it's not great, it is good. We'll take it. Market Outlook We'll be short with the market commentary today, mainly because we've got something bigger and better we want to leave you with this afternoon. Besides, what is there to say other than this back-and-forth pattern the market is stuck in has reached comical proportions? Take a look at the daily chart of the S&P 500. For a couple of hours Friday morning it looked like the index was seriously going to clear a pretty darn big resistance level at 2065. All it took was a kiss of the upper 20-day Bollinger band, though, to send the S&P 500 back-pedaling to a close of 2055.47. And, it's hardly the first time we've seen it happen. Given the pattern in play, we can't be shocked if the S&P 500 slides all the way back to a floor around 1991 from here. [That's not a prediction - just an observation.] Ditto for the NASDAQ Composite. Things looked great after yesterday's push above a falling resistance line (dashed) at 4749, and they looked even better with Friday morning's follow-through. But, all it took was a brush of the upper Bollinger band here - and maybe the approach toward the key 4811 level - and the sellers finally started to push back again just like they have three times since December. We're still not ruling out a breakout from where we are now. But, we have to wonder... is there any real reason to expect a breakout now when we couldn't muster one with the last three tries? If anything, the bar is even higher now that the S&P 500's trailing P/E is 18.0 and the forward-looking P/E is 16.47. We'll see. But hey - there's nothing we can do about it over the weekend, right? Besides, I've got a better suggestion for what you should do this weekend. How to Get More Out of the Market While it was clearly a good week for the market, for some of you, it was a great week. And for a handful of you, it was an outstanding week. Those of you who I know had a great week are the ones who've signed up for our free stock-picks, chosen and delivered to you (by text, or e-mail, or both) by the Elite Opportunity team. You guys were tipped off to Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) Tuesday afternoon, after the close. Assuming you got in at Wednesday's open - and assuming you didn't sell it in the meantime - you're now up 10%. And, if you were really looking for a quick score, then you could have booked a profit of more than 20% at one point on AMD on Thursday. Nice call John Monroe! Here's the thing... as fruitful as that pick was for those who get our free stock suggestions, the gain on AMD barely even scratches the surface of the kinds of profits full Elite Opportunity members have been enjoying of late. Care to guess who suggested taking a shot on Twitter (TWTR) Thursday afternoon before the close? If you guessed the Elite Opportunity newsletter, you're right. Those guys are loving the 16% jump from TWTR today following a fantastic Q4 earnings report. There's more. Remember JetBlue (JBLU)? That was an EO pick we "borrowed" a couple of days after they recommended it to their readers as a long-term idea back in October. It's now up about 68%, and looks like it's still going strong. Ford (F), Ubiquiti Networks (UBNT), Omnicell (OMCL) and FLIR Systems (FLIR) are also long-term picks the Elite Opportunity service has made lately, and all of them are up quite firmly this week as well, in response to impressive earnings beats. My point is, if you're not a subscriber to the Elite Opportunity newsletter, then you're missing out on some fantastic trades. Now, the question invariably comes up... why not just sign up for the free stock picking service and enjoy some winners at no cost? The answer, while there's not one thing wrong with doing that, those folks aren't getting everything the full subscribers to the EO service are. The only one of the recent trades we mentioned above that was given to the people on the free list was the Advanced Micro Devices. And, even AMD wasn't passed along as a trading idea until well after Elite Opportunity members got a chance to act on it. Yet, even that's not the only reason you'd want to go ahead and sign up for the whole enchilada. Though John Monroe whispered the AMD to the free stock-picking service folks after mentioning it to EO members, it wasn't like those people got anywhere near the guidance and coverage full Elite Opportunity subscribers do. Members got a stop price and a target price along with the suggestion. Monroe pegged the AMD target at $3.23, and the stock just so happened to hit that mark on Thursday. Full EO members knew to get out then at a 20% profit. Everyone else was flying solo, so to speak, and would have seen their gain whittled down to only about 10% today if they didn't make an exit yesterday. The moral of the story is, being an Elite Opportunity subscriber pays off in a big way. Those of you who've limited your exposure to the Elite Opportunity by only being a recipient of its occasional free suggestion, you've had to have seen enough great results to go ahead and become a full member. Heck, your Advanced Micro Devices trade may well pay for your service, depending on how much you bought. Here's how you can make the upgrade. For those of you who've just been standing by and watching everybody else reap big rewards with the EO's free suggestions, I'm not even going to suggest you become full Elite Opportunity subscribers just yet. I'll simply encourage you to sign up for the free stock pick alerts today, and let John Monroe and his team earn your business. Here's how to do that. Whichever of those groups you belong to, you CAN get more out of the market than you're getting now. You just have to take the next step.