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“The jungle is dark but full of diamonds” – Arthur Miller, Death of a Salesman

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Futures are pointing to another positive session this morning, even as the market has received earnings reports from Amazon.com (AMZN) and Apple (AAPL) tepidly. Overnight in Asia, major averages finished the week on a higher note as Japan and Hong Kong traded up more than 1% while China was closed. Even though its markets were closed, Chinese officials said they are assessing whether to conduct trade negotiations with the US after they say the Trump administration has reportedly reached out multiple times to start talks.

After yesterday’s holiday, European stocks picked up right where Asia left off as the STOXX 600 rallies more than 1%, putting it on pace for a weekly gain of 2.5%. The region’s Manufacturing PMI for April came in higher than expected at 49.0 versus forecasts for a reading of 48.0. It’s still in contraction territory, but a better-than-expected report is a better-than-expected report. On the trade front, the EU commissioner of trade commented that the bloc could buy more US goods to narrow the trade deficit between the two regions.

Here in the US, while futures are higher, where we close will depend on the April Employment report. After a weaker-than-expected ADP report and an uptick in jobless claims yesterday, there are some heightened concerns of a weaker report. The actual print came in better than expected, though. Non-Farm Payrolls were stronger than expected (177K vs 133K) while the Unemployment Rate was right inline with expectations at 4.2%. Average hourly earnings rose slightly less than expected (0.2% vs 0.3%), but average weekly hours came in slightly higher than expected (34.3 vs 34.2). In response to the report, both treasury yields and equity futures have moved higher.

The equity market’s historical comeback continued yesterday as the S&P 500’s 0.63% rally propelled it back above its 50-day moving average (DMA) for the first time in over two months and a streak of eight gains in a row. While the index’s short-term downtrend has been broken, it still faces upside resistance at the 200-DMA and the mid-March high when it last failed to rally back above that long-term moving average.