Good morning! The market is trying to wind down 2006 on a positive note. For the second session in a row, the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($DJI) once more established another record high as well as record close. After striking 12,454 intraday, the index ended the session up 28.76 points at 12,445.52. The Nasdaq Composite and S&P 500 have lagged a bit, but both managed slightly higher closes on the week. The Nasdaq ($COMPX) gained 3.35 points, closing the week at 2,457.20, while the S&Ps ($SPX) rose 1.60 points and closed at 1,427.09. The S&Ps felt the greatest pressure heading into the weekend due to losses in precious metal miners, natural gas and oil. A 10% drop in Black & Decker (BDK) after announcing an earnings warning did not help. TEK and WHR also put pressure on the index.

On the positive side of things, tech stocks faired well into the weekend. Adobe Systems rose approximately 5% after it met earnings expectations and beat on revenue. Ciena Corp. (CIEN) also got a strong boost as it followed up on Thursday's nice earnings report with an upgrade from Deutsche Bank and gained another 3.5%. Other top gainers included NVLS, WY, MON, WLT, and BCO, many of which followed CIEN's path of continuing with the strong buying from the previous session.

Volume was pretty decent on Friday, but after the strong trend on Thursday it had a more difficult time intraday and experienced a great deal of chop after gapping somewhat higher into the open. The Nasdaq was not even able to penetrate the highs of the first 5 minutes of the session, although the S&P 500 and Dow both tried to push past that resistance for the first 90 minutes of the day. The pace on the buying, however, was moderate and the indices struggled with a great deal of overlap in prices along the way. Once the 11:00 ET reversal period hit, all three of the indices broke their lower trend channels from the morning and began to retrace over noon.

The selloff gained a little bit of momentum to close the morning gap. Once the congestion from the prior day hit, however, the brief excursion to the downside subsided. The market tested the support levels a bit more strongly into 13:30 ET, but the remainder of the day was marked by a return of the morning's congestion and the indices held a narrow range under the 15 minute 20 simple moving average resistance into the close.

Most analysts are anticipating the bulls to hold steady as the year comes to an end. This belief is rooted in the expectations that the economy is going to attempt a "soft landing." Many eyes will be on ORCL on Monday when they announce their quarterly earnings. MS, CC, BBBY, FDX, BMET, and NKE are other top names reporting this week. I am expecting most of the activity this week to be focused on the first half of it, as many market players will begin to redirect their attentions towards the end of the week as the holiday season continues into Christmas and the shortened trading week ahead. The market will be closed on Monday. January is the next correction period on the monthly charts, so even though things have been strong lately, watch out for some profit-taking on portfolio turnovers into the end of the year.

Economic Reports and Events This Week
Monday: Current Account for Q3 (8:30 am)
Tuesday: Housing Starts, Building Permits, PPI, and Core PPI for Nov. (8:30 am)
Wednesday: Crude Inventories 12/15 (10:30 am)
Thursday: GDP-Final for Q3 and Chain Deflator-Final for Q3 (8:30 am), Initial Claims 12/16 (8:30 am), Leading Indicators for Nov. (10:00 am), Philadelphia Fed for Dec. (12:00 pm)
Friday: Durable Orders, Personal Income and Personal Spending for Nov. (8:30 am), Mich. Sentiment - Rev. for Dec. (10:00 am)

Key Earnings Announcements This Week
Monday: JOYG, SCS, APSG, FCEL, HOV, and ORCL
Tuesday: CC, FDS, MCS, MS, SCHL, CHAP, CBK, CTAS, DRI, FSII, PALM, and SMOD
Wednesday: AIR, ATU, BMET, KMX, FDO, COMS, ACN, APOG, BBBY, COGN, FINL, MLHR, NKE, and PAYX
Thursday: AGE, AM, CCL, CMC, CAG, GIS, NOBH, RAD, SMSC, WOR, EGLS, RHT, RIMM, RECN, SHFL, SLR, and TIBX
Friday: No companies are scheduled to report.
Note: All economic numbers and earnings reports are in lines with those compiled by Yahoo Finance and Briefing.com. Occasionally changes will occur that are made after the posting of this column.

Toni Hansen is President and Co-founder of the Bastiat Group, Inc., and runs the popular Trading From Main Street. She can be reached at Toni@tradingfrommainstreet.com.