Its been a rather lackluster day as the major indices continue to trade slightly lower.  Volumes are extremely light ahead of the 3 day Christmas weekend and will likely continue this pace through the New Year.  On the NYSE, advancers led decliners 1463/1398, while on the Nasdaq decliners outpaced advancers 1646/797.  Consumer Discretionary, Financials, Health Care and Information Technology are among the weak sectors with Materials, Real Estate and Utilities strong today. 

 On the economic front, November new home sales skyrocketed 17.5% to 733,000 month over month compared to estimates of 652,000.  This was the strongest rate since July 2007.  Supply remains extremely tight for existing home, leading to demand in all regions for new homes, especially in the South and the West.  

• Northeast +9.5%
• Midwest +6.9%
• South +14.9%
•  West +31.1%
• Median sales price + 1.2% year-over-year to $318,700
• Average sales price +3.8% to $377,100
• New home supply down to a 4.6-months versus  5.1 months in the prior year period
• Homes sold at $399,000 or less accounted for 70% of the new homes sold in November up from 67% in October

The final December reading for the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment report recorded a decline to 95.9 from the 96.8 preliminary reading.  Consensus was for 97.3 However, the final read was just slightly lower than the average read for 2017 of 96.8 is the highest average since 2000.

Merry Christmas.  Enjoy and be safe.