The good thing about Wall Street is that you get a Christmas break. Wheather you want one or not. The market dies around Christmas and not that much fun trading.

WHO IS TRADING

I was watching the S&P E-Mini trading Christmas eve, and it was scarily slow. The last few minutes had a lot of closing trades, but I think trading was by two groups.

[1] Computers. They don’t care about Christmas anyway. A data feed is a data feed.

[2] People who can’t make it home for the holidays. This also includes those foreigners who have not figured out that Christmas is a big deal to the Americans.

Come to think of it, they are pretty much the same group anyway.

WHAT NOT TO DO OVER XMAS

Well. Don’t trade. Markets are much ‘thinner’, than usual an makes a lot of funky moves. By ‘thinner’, I mean the volume is less than usual.

Apple Computer , which usually does somewhere in the 30M ~ 40M range only did about a fourth of that on Christmas eve.

When the markets are thin like this, it is best just to take a break. Spend time with the in-laws and watch the kids fight over toys.

Hello, Santa ? Where is my rally ?

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