YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Thanks to better-than-expected data, the mood among market participants has improved drastically since August. In turn, September has started three straight gains for a cumulative climb of more than 5%.

Jobs figures for August inspired buyers on Friday. The consensus among economists polled by Briefing.com called for nonfarm payrolls to drop by 120,000 in August, but nonfarm payrolls fell just 54,000 instead. What's more, private payrolls increased 67,000, which is much stronger than the increase of 44,000 that had been widely expected. Despite the stronger-than-expected statistics, the headline unemployment rate remained steady at 9.6%, as expected.

Encouraging jobs numbers complemented better-than-expected data from earlier in the week, namely upbeat readings on consumer confidence and a strong ISM Manufacturing Index. However, the ISM Service Index for August disappointed this morning. It slipped to 51.5, which is below the 53.0 that had been widely expected.

Though the ISM Service Index invited some profit taking that caused stocks to pare their gains, buyers stepped back in to boost stocks in afternoon trade and help them settle near session highs. Such a bid gave stocks their fourth straight gain, during which time the S&P 500 has advanced 5.3%.

The early September surge contrasts with the month's historically poor performances. However, heading into September stocks had become oversold amid considerably bearish sentiment. That led to attractive valuations, such that the S&P 500 traded with a forward P/E of 11.9x, which many viewed as attractive in light of the forward P/E of 11.1x that was seen at market's multiyear low in March 2009, when the economic backdrop was arguably much more dire.

The stock market's newfound strength has caused volatility to drop sharply over recent sessions. More specifically, the Volatility Index has dropped more than 20% during the course of the past four sessions and now sits below its 200-day moving average for the first time in about three weeks.

Despite the release of the highly anticipated jobs report, participation remained unimpressive as fewer than 1 billion shares were traded on the NYSE for the second straight session. That lackluster total is partly due to continued skepticism of the market among retail investors and institutional trading desks being lightly staffed ahead of Labor Day, which will keep U.S. markets closed on Monday.

An improved mood among participants caused many to rotate out of Treasuries. As a result, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Note moved back above 2.70%. Between its weekly low and its weekly high the yield on the 10-year Note climbed about 30 basis points.

The dollar also fell out of favor. Relative to a basket of competing currencies it fell 0.5% in its third straight slide.

Oct crude oil closed lower by 0.6% to $74.60 per barrel, unable to hold onto gains from this morning's better-than-expected non-farm payrolls data. Oct natural gas rallied for 3.9% to settle at $3.93 per MMBtu, breaking out of its recent one week range. Oversold conditions helped natural gas move higher today.

Dec silver closed up 1.2% to $19.95 per ounce. It traded higher throughout the session to trade to its best levels since March of 2008. Dec gold finished down -0.3% to $1251.10 per ounce. This morning's economic data sent gold futures lower as the risk switch was momentarily turned back one

Advancing Sectors: Financials (+2.2%), Tech (+1.7%), Consumer Discretionary (+1.5%), Industrials (+1.4%), Materials (+1.3%), Energy (+1.0%), Health Care (+0.9%), Consumer Staples (+0.6%), Utilities (+0.6%), Telecom (+0.3%)
Declining Sectors: (None)DJ30 +127.83 NASDAQ +33.74 NQ100 +1.6% R2K +1.8% SP400 +1.4% SP500 +14.41 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 2020/1.65 bln/591 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2343/945 mln/648