The first session of the Christmas week saw decent gains on broad strength. Ten sectors finished higher, with four advancing 1% or further.

Materials (XLB) was the best performer, as metal commodity prices rose. Gold and Silver both reached new records, while Platinum hit a 17-year high and Palladium hit a 3-year high.

Market breadth was impressive with lighter volume, as expected.

Growth was the leader across the board with strong action in mid-cap names.

Not surprisingly, big tech is getting bigger with the top 10 largest stocks accounting for 40% of the S&P 500 market cap.

The so-called fear-index, VIX, declined below 15, supporting a bullish pattern breakout environment. Historically, the last 8 times this happened, the S&P 500 advanced higher a month later.

Today’s Session

Futures are looking to open under moderate pressure. Metals are leading the gains in commodity prices this morning.

Consumers were spending this holiday season.  According to Visa’s (V) US holiday spending report, retail spending rose 4.2% YoY, with 73% in physical stores and 27% online. Online sales rose by 7.8% YoY, which got a boost from early season promotions. Electronics grew 5.8% YoY and were the top holiday category.

On the economic front, it was a solid third-quarter, with the first read on GDP up 4.3% q/q with exports rising to 8.8% and personal consumption up 3.5%.  Government consumption moved up to 2.2%, but business investments pulled back to 2.8%.

The ADP preliminary estimates showed employers added an average of 11,500 jobs per week in the 4 weeks preceding December 6^th. It was down from 17,500 in the prior period.