With only one complete trading week left until the end of 2025, the US stock market has entered the unique trading rhythm of the holiday season. The market closed early on Wednesday the 24th, and there is a direct market closure on Christmas Day the 25th. With fewer participants and less capital, prices are more easily pushed around in this situation.

Traders love to talk about the "Santa Claus rally" at this time—referring to the concentrated rise during the last five trading days of the year plus the first two trading days of the next year. It sounds like a legend, but there are clues behind it: the need for window dressing at year-end rankings, the window for fund rebalancing, and the continuation of trends caused by thinning liquidity. The three major stock indexes are actually not far from their historical highs, and bulls have reasons to ride the wave of sentiment. But here's the problem—being close to the highs means valuations are already very sensitive, and even a slight disturbance under low liquidity could lead to a rapid pullback.

To truly see the direction clearly, one must focus on a few key data points. The consumer confidence index released by the World Federation of Large Corporations on Tuesday, timed just before the Christmas holiday, serves as an important reference for the market’s judgment on consumer resilience and differentiation. Next is the final value of the December consumer confidence from the University of Michigan, which directly affects the reassessment of interest rate expectations and consumer narratives. In other words, data and sentiment are in a tug-of-war during the holiday week, each trying to outweigh the other.