Today's financial reporting would have it that, due to tomorrow's payroll report, everyone's sitting the day out so the market ended flat.  Well, the intraday activity does not support that position at all; it was in fact quite a tumultuous session with the Dow swinging back and forth 150 points between big selling due to bad Q3 reports and big buying due to good.  As the final analysis indicated, there was a 1.05:1 decline vs advance ratio on the NYSE which means that the amount of selling almost exactly equaled the buying which accounted for the very slight 4 point loss at close.  At 7.3 billion shares, volume was also quite brisk (as it has been) so nobody was really sitting this one out.  Valeant Pharmaceuticals was back in the news as the Senate panel investigating drug price gouging started yesterday and its price tumbled still another 14 percent.  But tomorrow will be big.  If we get a good payroll report, that will tell the market that there almost certainly will be a rate hike in December.  So there'll either be a rally or a sell off depending on that data.

On Monday, Barry Ritholtz did a column about Valeant which is well worth a read.  I'll try to include in this blog tomorrow.

Markets | Thu Nov 5, 2015 4:43pm EST

Wall St slips after mixed earnings as jobs report looms

BY LEWIS KRAUSKOPF

DJ:  17,863.43  -4.15         NAS:  5,127.74  -14.74         S&P: 2,099.93  -2.38

REUTERS/BRENDAN MCDERMID

U.S. stocks edged lower on Thursday as investors digested mixed tech and healthcare earnings a day ahead of Friday's U.S. jobs report.

Energy shares dragged more than other sectors as crude prices fell. Qualcomm (QCOM.O) weighed the most on the S&P 500, falling 15.3 percent to $51.07 after the chipmaker forecast first-quarter profit below expectations. Biotech Celgene (CELG.O) fell 5.3 percent to $120.46 after its quarterly revenue missed targets.

Overall declines were limited by a rise in Facebook (FB.O) shares following the social media company's strong quarterly results, and a 0.4 percent gain in the financial sector .SPSY. Facebook shares jumped 4.6 percent to $108.76.

Investors were looking to Friday's nonfarm payrolls report as they gauge whether the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in December.

"This is a big piece of data as to what the Fed is looking for," said Scott Colyer, chief executive officer of Advisors Asset Management in Monument, Colorado. "I think everybody wants them to move or not move. The month-to-month stuff is killing everybody."

The Dow Jones industrial average .DJI fell 4.15 points, or 0.02 percent, to 17,863.43, the S&P 500 .SPX lost 2.38 points, or 0.11 percent, to 2,099.93 and the Nasdaq Composite.IXIC dropped 14.74 points, or 0.29 percent, to 5,127.74.

The declines paused a rally that took shape in October, the best monthly performance for major stock indexes in four years.

"We have had in the past month ... a very strong market, a very sharp rebound, and I think that’s also probably causing some profit taking more than you might expect from the news that’s out there,” said Tim Ghriskey, chief investment officer of Solaris Asset Management in New York.

Seven of the 10 major S&P sectors finished lower. The S&P energy sector .SPNY fell 1 percent, with Chevron (CVX.N) off 2.3 percent to $94.55 and Exxon (XOM.N) down 1.4 percent at $84.81.

The utilities group .SPLRCU dropped 0.8 percent and materials .SPLRCM declined 0.5 percent.

The S&P healthcare sector .SPXHC fell 0.4 percent, weighed down by Celgene's results.

A U.S. Senate panel on Wednesday launched a probe into drug price increases, seeking documents from four drugmakers including Valeant Pharmaceuticals (VRX.N). U.S.-listed Valeant shares tumbled 14.4 percent to $78.77 on Thursday.

The probe hit the entire biotech group and the broader market as well, said Larry Peruzzi, a senior equity trader at Cabrera Capital Markets Inc in Boston.

HomeAway (AWAY.O) surged 25.3 percent to $40.15 after Expedia (EXPE.O) said it would buy the vacation rental site for $3.9 billion. Expedia rose 2.4 percent to $137.40.

Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones on the NYSE by 1,561 to 1,488, for a 1.05-to-1 ratio on the downside; on the Nasdaq, 1,497 issues fell and 1,283 advanced for a 1.17-to-1 ratio favoring decliners.

The S&P 500 posted 22 new 52-week highs and 7 new lows; the Nasdaq recorded 94 new highs and 71 new lows.

About 7.3 billion shares changed hands on U.S. exchanges, compared with the 7 billion daily average for the past 20 trading days, according to Thomson Reuters data.