Stocks defied negative news from North Korea as the rogue country tested its nuclear and missle strike capabilities. Consumer confidence jumped big fueling institutional buying pushing stocks even higher and the buying continued right up into the close. Volume was up across the board compared to Friday’s trade, but it was below the 50dma. Not a terrible sign, but its more showing institutions are still being a bit shy. Rapping up the day, seeing the indexes close out near the highs on volume was a positive step in the right direction.

Finally, we see the IBD indexes leading this market. The trend will need to continue, but today was a step in the right direction. It is nice to see quality growth stocks lead for once and not the junk off the bottom. Remember, in past uptrends which followed severe bear markets …

President-elect Barack Obama said Saturday that an analysis of his stimulus proposal found that the capital infusion could save or create as many as 4 million U.S. jobs by 2010, nearly 90% of them in the private sector.

Obama previously estimated that his estimated $800 billion strategy for winching the American economy out of its year-long recession could save or create 3 million jobs, but the new study has found that the actual number would range between 3 million and 4 million.

The analysis was submitted by Christina Romer, head of Obama’s council of economic advisors, and Jared Bernstein, the economic advisor to Vice President-elect Joe Biden. The analysis directly follows an official government report showing that U.S. employers slashed more than half a million jobs in December, pushing the unemployment rate to 7.2% and bringing the number of jobs lost last year to 2.6 million — the worst showing since