January 13, 2014, 10:09 AM ET

Were covering the stock market live on Monday. You can read a wrap of pre-market actions here  and after the open, a compact rundown of the stock market in Market Snapshot.

Good morning. Stocks were slightly lower in the early going, but now theyre slightly up to flat.

S&P 500 +0.3 point

Dow + 7 points

Nasdaq + 2 points

Today has brought one notable opinion on the S&P 500.

David Kostin of Goldman Sachs thinks the benchmark indexs valuation is lofty by almost any measure.

He writes that the current price-to-earnings multiple on the S&P 500is about as high as it can get under these current conditions, both as measured by the aggregate index (15.9 times) and the median stock (16.8 times).

Read more here .

Biotech names are making plenty of moves this morning, and theyll get lots of attention from investors, what with a J.P. Morgan health-care conference taking place today.

Last weeks big winner Intercept (ICPT) has been down hard. while Clovis (CLVS) seen as the next Intercept has jumped.

10:32 am
• Randy Frederick: Still room for slight PE expansion
• by Anora Mahmudova Edit Add a Comment

Randy Frederick, a managing director for active trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab said that markets have been trading mostly sideways in the past several sessions with reactions to both good news and bad news mostly subdued, as most investors now focused on earnings results.

Markets believe that the December jobs data were disappointing primarily due to cold weather and investors think the number is likely to be revised upwards. Given all other indications suggesting improving hiring conditions, such as ADP and manufacturing data, the number of new jobs will be made up in the next month, Frederick said.

Speaking of valuations he said he disagreed with Goldman Sachs view that the S&P 500 is too overvalued.

We look at 12-months trailing PE ratios rather than forward-looking ones, and at roughly 19.5 that number, while slightly higher than historical average, seems not terribly high. Even if earnings do not rise as much as we expect, there is still room for a slight PE expansion.

Speaking of biotechs, a key ETF for that space IBB is up 1.3% today, giving it a gain of more than 6% so far in the still-young new year.

IBB was a big winner in 2013, with Trading Deck columnist Kevin Marder writing about how it gave Internet plays a run for their money.

Checking in on the main indexes as we get close to halftime it continues to be a wobbly, wavering day.

Fluctuating between small gains and losses is another phrase that gets trotted out for sessions like todays.

This week has plenty of economic data. but its coming out later in the week, not today, so that partly explains the indecisive action.

S&P 500 was last down -1 point or -0.1%

Dow -18 points or -0.1%

Nasdaq + 4 points or +0.1%

The most disappointing number from Fridays Employment Report was not the miss to jobs growth expectations (74,000 versus the hoped for 200,000), but rather the continued precipitous decline in labor force participation, wrote Nicholas Colas, chief market strategist at ConvergEx Group, a global brokerage company based in New York.

At 62.8%, this measure of people actually working or looking for employment has slumped back to the levels of the 1970s economic malaise. More importantly, the trend here has outstripped the U.S. Governments forecasts, which only called for such a level around 2020. January 2013 may not see any improvement if Congress does not extend emergency unemployment benefits, with participation dropping further if the long-term unemployed chose to exit the workforce as a result. That would leave the Fed with an unwelcomed communications problem: quickly drop the 6.5% threshold unemployment rate from its monetary policy, or risk being seen as out of touch.

Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. soared 52.2% making it the best performing stock on the S&P 500, after reports that the U.S. based drugmaker agreed to sell a 12% stake to Genzyme Copr, the biotech unit of Sanofi for $700 million.

From the WSJ report:

Genzyme and Alnylam, a biopharmaceutical company based in Cambridge, Mass. will jointly develop and sell a new experimental drug being developed to treat familial amyloid cardiomyopathy, a rare genetic heart disease, now in Phase 2 of clinical trials.

Alnylams stock price rose more than five-fold in the past 12 months.

Technology stocks are leading gains on the S&P 500, with the heaviest-weighted Apple, Inc rallying 1.8%.

Juniper Networks jumped 8.16% after shareholder Elliott Management, presented a plan that it said would lift the stock to $35 to $40 a share through share buybacks, reducing expenses and streamlining its business operations. Twitter shares were also on the rise, gaining 3%.

Russ Koesterich, the BlackRock investment strategist, offers up a few takeways on Fridays disappointing jobs report.

He writes in a note out today that the report has several implications for investors:

First, we would argue that weak jobs growth is one reason why it makes sense to diversify outside of U.S. stocks. And he suggests Europe is looking attractive.

Second, we would remain cautious toward consumer stocks both the consumer staples and consumer discretionary sectors.

Finally, while we continue to advocate that investors remain underweight Treasuries, we would point out that some segments of the Treasury market look more attractive than others. Namely, he says long-dated Treasury bonds with yields of around 3% to 4% no longer look as overvalued as they did one year ago.

Today in the world of exchange-traded funds, ETF writers are having fun with T-Mobiles decision to emphasize early termination fees in a new marketing effort:

Thx to T-Mobiles new ad campaign, the #ETF hashtag is no more just fund nerds and teenagers quoting lyrics of emo-band Escape the Fate.

Eric Balchunas (@EricBalchunas) January 12, 2014