Today's markets could not decide which way was up. SPX opened down and then quickly reversed to move into the black. But then SPX traded down steadily until early afternoon when it began to recover, closing at $1793, only down $2 on the day. RUT followed suit, trading as low as $1112 before recovering to close at $1121, down $2. All of this back and forth occurred on higher trading volume, with 2.4 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading today. Volume increased on both the NYSE and NASDAQ, +5% and +4%, respectively.

As you might expect, volatility also reflected this back and forth price action, moving as high as 15.7% and as low as 14.2%, before closing at 14.7%, up two tenths of a point on the day.

ADP's private employment report came out today with 215k new jobs. Some analysts are now wondering if this is an early indicator of a positive jobs report on Friday. But ADP has a spotty record of correlation with the jobs report. New home sales increased 90k to 444k in October. The ISM services index decreased to 53.9 for November from October's 55.4.

So where is that Santa Claus rally? Have we already gained too much this year and we will therefore spend the next couple of weeks consolidating those gains? Or is this just another minor pull back that the bulls will take as a buying opportunity and push on to new highs?