A “Wins-Day” for bulls is followed up by less decisive action as trader attention mulls “Bear-nankeSpeak” and Friday’s nonfarm payrolls. As of 12:15 ET the SP-500 (SPY) is mostly flat after a little of this and a little of that on the heels of some pleasing technical confirmation within the range.

Darned that Fed Chief!! Intraday “Bear-nankeSpeak” in front of the House Budget Committee noted the US economy remains vulnerable to shocks due to its sluggish expansion. The dialogue has helped keep a lid on the SP-500 within its two-week long tight lateral range after modest early efforts put bulls back near recent highs and in position for a breakout.

In front of Bernanke's testimony, slightly more uninhibited behavior from market bulls found some support Thursday from a wave of mostly pleasing corporate confessionals, mixed same-store sales results with a bullish outlook teaser, better-than-expected weekly claims data of 367K versus a forecast of 375K and unresolved quiet from overseas credit markets.

Leading the earnings parade for bulls are diverse market heavyweights like Qualcomm (QCOM), Allstate (ALL), MasterCard (MA), BMC (BMC), Cummins (CMI) and Electronic Arts (EA) with gains of about 2.75% to 8%. Percolating its way to the top of Thursday’s well-brewed reports, shares of Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) are up 21%.

By the numbers, the erstwhile “K-Cup” manufacturer posted a $0.22 profit beat with earnings of $0.60 per share on better-than-expected sales growth of 101.7%. Looking forward, management at Green Mtn. issued below views Q2 top and bottom-line guidance, but reaffirmed its above-views fiscal year 2012 outlook.

In the fashionable Percent Leaders spotlight for the SP-500, shares of Gap Stores (GPS) are up nearly 9.0%. The retail outfit announced a lighter-than-expected same-store-sales decline of 4.0% compared to consensus views of -5.1%.

Overall January sales data showed consumers that were motivated by sales but tight-fisted for paying retail prices due to a weak economic recovery. Topping the list of beats this morning are same-store-sale results from Zumiez (ZUMZ), Costco (COST), Limited (LTD) and Target (TGT).

In those intertwined markets of influence, the EUR/USD is off 0.17% in narrow inside trade following Wednesday’s bullish Kings & Queens technical rebuttal on the daily chart.

The US Oil Fund (USO) is off 1.45%, testing 200SMA support and nearing a gap fill test as supply worries of a different sort, i.e. a bounty coming down from Canada, not tied to geopolitical saber rattling has pressured West Texas Intermediate Crude prices. In fact, WTI’s relationship to Brent crude levels is seeing its largest spread since mid-November.

Metals (GLD, SLV) are showing some relative precious behavior with gains of 0.60% and 1.30% respectively and in scraping together fresh intermediate highs by a narrow margin. And the VIX ($VIX) is off 1.50% and remains a cooperative ally for equity bulls at 18.50% and neutralized in relation to its 10SMA.

And finally, mobile fun designer Zynga (ZNGA) is up about 17.0% in what Market Watch called a “halo effect” from Facebook’s pending IPO as many of its popular games can be found on the social networking site amongst other places in cyberspace. The buzz has vaulted shares of ZNGA from a less-heralded “Investors Pulling Out” situation to fresh all-time-highs since coming public back in mid-December.

In those sometimes accurate heat-seeking option markets, traders have been very actively gaming both calls and puts in fairly evenly-matched activity on heavy participation of more than 62,000 contracts. Who’s doing what to whom you say? It’s hard to say, but if you’re willing to try your hand at playing the charts rather than one of Zynga’s poker or board games; more than one option is certainly available and worth looking at rather than a standalone stock position.

Chris Tyler
Senior Options Writer, former Market Maker & fulltime Option Hedge Hog Advocate
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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.