The typical ‘Santa rally’ currently underway took a breather for the Thanksgiving holiday in the US at the end of last week.

LoadingThe S&P 500 has gained more than 10% since hitting a low in late October, but could only manage to add 0.1% to that in a shortened day’s trade on Friday, following a full day off on Thursday.

NAB’s head of FX strategy Ray Attrill says it was pretty quiet all around to end last week.

“The US equity market could barely find a pulse in its half-day session Friday, the S&P500 finishing up by just 0.06% (+1% on the week) and the NASDAQ -0.11%. the UK FTSE also finished up just 0.06% while Eurozone bourses performed a little better with the Eurostoxx 600 gaining a third of a per cent,” he writes.

“China and Hong Kong were the big underperformer Friday, with the Hang Seng down 2% and China CSI 300 down 0.7%, also making it the worst weekly performer (-0.8%). The ASX 200 also had a down week, albeit just -0.1%.”

The local futures are pointing to a 0.2% gain for the ASX 200 when trade resumes at 10:00am AEDT.

Oil had another down day on Friday, with Brent -1% to $US80.58, while gold held around $US2,000 an ounce and iron ore continued its march higher to  $US133.90 a tonne.

After attending two toddler birthday parties over the weekend, I feel primed for another week of market action. How ’bout you?

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