This time of year is historically bullish, e.g., the Santa Claus rally and so on. But we are in a tiring bull market. SPX was up over 30% last year and has climbed even higher this year, now up 12% year to date. It is only natural to expect some slowing, sideways consolidation trading. Traders will refer to the market "taking a breather" and so on. On Monday, it looked like a pull back or correction was starting, but the bears could not take advantage of that down day and the bulls took the reins back. When you think about it, even in October, once the bulls took control, we traded straight up - what a run! So the bulls are clearly in control, and this is their time of year, so they have historical trends on their side. On the other hand, this bull is tired; it has been a long run. Maybe this conflict of the historical bullish season of the year coupled with a tired market that needs to consolidate explains this market. Anyway, it's a thought.

SPX pulled back a bit, closing down two dollars at $2072. RUT dropped back $6 to close at $1173. Volatility remains pretty low with the VIX closing at 12.4%. Trading volume has remained pretty low for the past six weeks or so; volume on the S&P stocks has run below the 50 dma pretty consistently throughout November. Today was no exception with 1.9 billion shares of the S&P 500 trading (the 50 dma = 2.2B). Trading volume dropped 6% on the NYSE and increased 1% on NASDAQ.

The Challenger job cuts report came in 21% lower in November - much better news than October's 12% increase. Initial unemployment claims came in at 297k this week, down 17k. Continuing claims rose 39 thousand to 2.4 million. The unemployment data jump around a lot, but the trend is clearly downward, but at a slower than desired rate. Tomorrow's jobs report will be interesting, given a market that seems a bit nervous. Monday's weak retail sales news from the holiday weekend caused a sell-off, but it didn't last. The bulls came roaring back.

It seems like many of the guests on CNBC have been predicting a correction all year, but betting on the bulls has continued to be the winning play. We'll see...