9:00am (EST)
The market finished mixed on Thursday ahead of this morning’s jobs data which we kind of expected. Of course, the numbers from yesterday don’t really matter since we finished flat but let’s go over them real quick.
The Dow fell nearly 42 points and closed at 12,248. The S&P slipped 2 points to 1,313 while the Nasdaq added 4 points and settled at 2,773.
We covered much of yesterday’s action but failed to put our two cents worth on the Education stocks which had a huge day after the Department of Education issued a favorable gainful employment ruling. The new rules for the for-profit education companies give them more time to comply with the changes than the initial ruling had proposed but we still don’t like the sector.
Apollo Group (APOL, $46.90, up $4.71) jumped 11%, Corinthian Colleges (COCO, $5.06, up $+1.07) surged 27% while Strayer Education (STRA, $144.95, up $23.08) popped 19%. Of the three, we have been targeting Apollo Group over the years because we just don’t like the way they do business. You can search our archives by typing in APOL to review our past articles on the company but we would recommend staying away from the group, unless you want to short it down the road.
But we digressed…
Futures were slightly lower when we hit the hay last night and were weaker when we woke up and ahead of this morning’s jobs report.
They got worse after the news.
Nonfarm payrolls came in at 54,000 for May and the unemployment rate jumped to 9.1%.
Dow futures were down about 45 points but add another 100 after the report and are down 145 points to 12,093. The S&P futures are off by 16 points to 1,296 while the Nasdaq futures are lower by 26 points to 2,300.
As a result, we expect our downside targets for the major indexes to come into play today. Subscribers, check the Members Area for the updates.
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