On the heels of a last minute "sell-e-bration" and a slug of excuses, investors are nibbling cautiously on more of the same ol' bull. As of 11:15 ET the SP-500 (SPY) is up a very mild 0.15% and the Dow reclaiming the crowd-pleasing 10K marker.

Was it the VIX at 20%? Was it the canary of "Mr. Market" (GS) acting as a leading laggard per the Fast Money? Was it Dick Bove's bearish commentary on Wells (WFC)? Or could it have been the slow money of the HFT crowd taking ninety-plus minutes to digest a bearish Beige Book? Traders have a veritable choice of the litter when it comes to the "what happened" late day "sell-e-bration" in Wednesday's closing humper.

Fast forward to the here and now and there's at least fifty plus fresh reasons worthy of driving investors nowhere fast in Thursday's pin action. Leading the broad but equal mix of investor cheering and jeering, market heavyweights Goodrich (GR), Travelers (TRV), 3M (MMM) and Celgene (CELG) are providing the right stuff for bulls on better-than-expected results and appreciated fanfare.

For the bovine-inclined, disappointing corporate confessionals and / or "sell the news" inspiration from a diverse group of names have challenged market bulls tit for tat. Spearheading for the still-hibernating bears, names like Bunge (BG), Amgen (AMGN), Citrix (CTXS), Nucor (NUE), eBay (EBAY) and VMware (VMW) are all doing their part to claw the bull still at large.

Elsewhere, weekly jobless claims are providing further confirmation of the disconnect between bullish aspirations and the clunker of a jobless recovery effort for the economy. This morning results of 531,000 fresh filings for benefits came in above estimates of 515,000 from an optimistic Street. Prior claims were also revised upwards to 520,000. But, and possibly a very big one at that, continuing claims did drop to 5.92M versus the forecasted 5.97M.

In those sometimes intertwined markets of influence, treasuries (TLT) appear to be mostly siding with bulls nibbling in equities. Shares of TLT are off 0.52% and below 50-SMA support for a second session. The price action shapes up as a potential bearish flag as the "flight to safety" trade gets put aside in favor of the "confidence trade."

As if to confirm that idea, Black Gold (USO) is off fractionally but mostly refusing to give up its large relative strength gains of the past week which jettisoned shares to intermediate highs. With higher prices at the pump and perhaps the green shoots crowd still hoping for a recovery in the economy that's within a few standard deviations of what's been forged in the markets; investors are driving in circular fashion with the fore-mentioned TLT and the still slumping US Dollar (UUP).

On that sometimes accurate heat-seeking option front for companies set to report earnings, Amazon (AMZN) is showing some decent activity versus its daily contract average of 20,000. Intraday, more than 34,000 options have traded with puts beating out the calls by a narrow margin.

Most popular, the November 95 and 100 calls and November 90 and 95 puts which straddle shares currently at 92. With premiums firmly bid to one month highs and more than double shorter-term and well above longer-term SV readings-that's some composite bull grazing in AMZN. Technically, shares are about 2.50% below a "proper buy point" of 94.60 from a cup-with high handle pattern which began back in late July.

Chris Tyler
Senior Staff Writer & Options Strategist
Optionetics.com ~ Your Options Education Site
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The information offered here is based upon Christopher Tyler's observations and strictly intended for educational purposes only, the use of which is the responsibility of the individual.