US equities are up a small amount on a relatively slow day for the market

US equities are up a small amount on a relatively slow day for the market. Perhaps Americans are going home early to celebrate Halloween, but there hasn't been a lot of action in the broad markets today. Regarding economic data, jobless claims dropped by 10,000 from the prior week - a good sign after a worse than expected ADP jobs number yesterday. The biggest surprise came from the Chicago Manufacturing Index, which jumped from 55.7 to 65.9 - the highest increase since March 2011. The results seem odd given most other manufacturing data has been worse than expected lately. It could just be a random blip this month due for significant mean reversion - or perhaps it's a signal of things to come. The increase was supposedly driven by automobile orders, but only time will tell if this is the start of an upswing.