Traders continue to lift U.S. equity markets higher as they shrug off the downfall of MF Global and the troubles associated with the European sovereign debt crisis.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average shot back up above the 12,000 mark for the first time this week after a significant selloff earlier in the week. The S&P 500 breached the key 1249 level to lose at 1261. Should a sell off occur, support will be at 1250.

“The markets have whipsawed today on continued fears over the MF global liquidation situation,” Evan McDaniel, trader and founder of HedgeAccording.ly, told Markets Media. “The subsequent liquidity issues have caused large low volume moves the last two days, people are lying if they say the volalatiity of price is not related to MF global. There are many skeletons in many closets, it is only matter of time before they are discovered.”

“Other brokers are rumored to have ‘issues’ and may be overblown and fear mongering, though price action and volume tend to tell a story,” noted McDaniel. “Participants in this industry are worried about who is next…. we saw this exact scenario in 2008 leading up to the collapse of Lehman.”

Europe is going to continue to pose a problem with traders and investors as politicos continue to kick the can down the road. Until someone steps up, the euro goes under or a foreign bailout occurs, the situation will remain tricky.

“Kicking the can down the road is not the answer, nor is backstopping all the banks,” McDaniel added.