Wall Street made it two for two on this Christmas shortened trading week; rising on solid existing homes sales data. The Dow Jones industrial average rose 50.79, or 0.5 percent, to 10,464.93. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose 3.97, or 0.4 percent, to 1,118.02, while the Nasdaq composite index rose 15.01, or 0.7 percent, to 2,252.67. The Russell 2000 index of smaller companies rose 5.00, or 0.8 percent, to 623.60.

Morning Outlook

Futures are looking to keep the winning streak alive on the street. Dow Jones industrial average futures rose 28, or 0.3 percent, to 10,436. Standard & Poor’s 500 index futures rose 4.40, or 0.4 percent to 1,118.00, while Nasdaq 100 index futures rose 7.25, or 0.4 percent, to 1,848.25. Economic data, especially housing has been extremely positive, and traders hope to see further evidence of strong Q4 growth with new home sales.

The blue chips have had no trouble surpassing 10,500, so I expect that to be broken if trading continues in the same direction. Only a sharp downward surprise in today’s data could change the sentiment on the street.

Currencies and Commodities

The dollar fell 0.0599% at 91.78 yen in the currency market. The euro appreciated 0.1074% to $1.4265 while the pound declined 0.1202% to $1.5946. Gold is down $4.50 to $1082.20 an ounce, while silver fell 0.50% at $16.94. Light, sweet crude for February delivery gained 26 cents to $74.66; an advance of 0.35% on economic momentum. The EIA will release their inventory report later today.

Economic Calendar

8:30 AM
Personal Income: the dollar value of income received from all sources by individuals. Consumer spending: Includes consumer purchases of durable and nondurable goods, and services.

The consensus increase in personal income for the month of November is 0.5%, while October saw a rise of 0.2%. Consumer spending is expected to have risen 0.6% in the month, down 10 basis points from October. Core spending remains slow, while wages have flatlined as unemployment hovers at 10%.

9:55 AM
Consumer Sentiment: Consumer sentiment is directly related to the strength of consumer spending, by questioning 500 households each month on their financial conditions and attitudes about the economy. The consensus final reading for December is 73.5, up from the prior reading of 73.4. The current conditions portion has seen the largest gain, hopefully alongside the rise in equities will translate into a solid holiday shopping season.

10:00 AM
New Home Sales: Measure the number of newly constructed homes with a committed sale during the month. The level of new home sales indicates trends in the housing market. For November, new home sales are expected to be at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 440,000 after rising 6.2% in October to 430,000. Supply at the current sales rate fell to 6.7 months, while only 239,000 new homes were on the market in October in what was the lowest number going all the way back to 1971.