Heading into this week, we were well within our right to expect things to be slow for financial markets.  Christmas is on Friday.  Thursday is a half day.  Anyone who is doing much work will be done by Wednesday.  But even with all of the above, today still managed to be surprisingly slow from a trading standpoint.  Volumes were very close to matching November 27th (the day after Thanksgiving)--something that normally doesn't happen on a full business day.

The consequence of the slowness was that we had a modest amount of volatility, albeit inside a narrow range.  Bonds also marched to their own beat, for the most part, eschewing much of the typical correlations with other markets. 

Analysis is generally moot on days like today.  The almost perfectly unchanged closing levels add emphasis to that fact.  Things pick up a bit tomorrow in terms of economic data, but it remains to be seen if that will translate to much volume or momentum.