It was unlikely we would witness another 400-point pop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average today, but fortunately, we aren’t experiencing the opposite in today’s session. Markets are oscillating quite a bit today on high volume thanks to Quadruple Witching taking place before the holidays; that again is the expiration of various stock index futures and options on the same date and at the same time. Crude oil has made a slight comeback today, trading about 3.4% higher for the session to just above $56 per barrel. Russia’s economy continues to struggle as European Union leaders are encouraging the country to ease its stance on the Ukraine or face more economic sanctions. It was a very light economic day in the US, but there was some compelling data out of Europe overnight.

Despite all of the gloom-and-doom economic headlines coming out of Germany over the past few months, there was a new spark of hope this week. Namely that despite the country’s slowing economic growth and industrial production their consumers don’t seem to be fazed. The forward looking reading (listed as January 2015 for the month of December) of Germany’s GfK consumer confidence index came in at 9.0 which is the highest level since December 2006. Economists are also starting to feel optimistic about consumer sentiment, as they set their estimate to 8.7 for the month. Within details of the report, consumers’ economic expectations and willingness to buy products improved over the month of December as lower energy prices gave households some flexibility to make larger purchases. However, income expectations worsened, which was explained by unstable international situations rather than domestic circumstances. Since Europeans conduct far more business with Russia, any geopolitical woes with the country also affects the economic moods of European nations. Nevertheless, as Europe’s largest economy, this news is relatively positive for the region as a whole. The German consumer is definitely emerging from a period of weakness, also evidenced by business confidence showing its second consecutive month of improvement.