Stocks closed mostly higher yesterday with the Nasdaq leading the way.

Hard to believe there's less than 2 weeks left in the year.

Including today, there's literally only 8 trading days left. (The markets are closed next Monday for Christmas.)

In the meantime, the Q4 rally continues to roll on. And even though more than half the month is over, December is historically a strong month, and the latter half is where the majority of the gains are typically seen.

So these next 8 days could be just as exciting as the month and a half that preceded it.

Yesterday's Housing Market Index rose to 37 vs. last month's 34 and views for 36.

Today we'll get the Housing Starts and Permits report.

We'll also hear from President and Chief Executive Officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, Raphael Bostic in the afternoon. Even though Fed Chair, Jerome Powell shared that the dot plot is forecasting 3 rate cuts next year, Mr. Bostic seems to favor 2, and for beginning them later in the year rather than sooner.

And we'll hear from President and Chief Executive Officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, Austan Goolsbee later in the evening. Mr. Goolsbee recently said he was 'confused' by the market's reaction to last week's FOMC announcement where the Fed left rates unchanged, remarked that it was unlikely rates would be going up any further, and forecast 3 rate cuts next year vs. their previous estimate of just 2.

Quite frankly, I'm not sure what he was confused about. Everything the Fed said struck a bullish tone. Although, traders are pushing up the timeline of when they believe the Fed will start cutting. Especially since the Fed said they haven't begun discussing when those cuts will begin.

Nonetheless, the cat's out of the bag. And does it really matter when exactly since we're likely only talking about a matter of a couple of months difference?

Either way, this year has been stellar so far. The Dow is up 12.6%, the S&P is up 23.5%, and the Nasdaq is up 42.4%.

And next year looks like it's setting up to be another great year.

See you tomorrow,