When we left off last week, the market was closed on Friday, April 3 for the Good Friday holiday, but employment numbers were released and it was a disaster. The futures took a big hit and it was expected that the market would have a tough Monday. Well I guess over the weekend it was decided that bad economic news is good stock market news, as it so often is (in the “market’s” view), and the market opened slightly down on Monday but then finished strong and was up for the day. Tuesday was a small decline and the rest of the week was up. In sum, it was a good week for the equity markets.

The SPY was up 1.74%, the VTI was up 1.61%, VT was up 2.00% and the AGG fell by 0.22%.

Earnings week kicked off and 24 companies reported. 20 of the 24 topped expectations. 36 SP500 companies report this week coming up. As a counterweight to the poor employment report described above, on Thursday, claims for first time unemployment benefits fell to 282,000. That is the lowest number since June 2000. GE added to the up move on Friday, announcing it will divest of most of its GE Capital finance unit over the next couple of years. Proceeds, expected to be about $90b, would be used for buybacks. GE was up 14% on the week.