Today was a big day for economic news, most notably a preliminary look at the November Personal Income and Outlays. Personal Consumption was up 0.5% month-over-month, about as expected, and Personal Income came in light, up only 0.2% (MoM). So predictably enough, the Personal Savings rate dropped 0.3% (more here). Michigan Consumer Sentiment was unchanged from the December Preliminary 82.5.

None of this really mattered to the market, which was in holiday rally mode on light volume. Within the first five minutes of trading, the S&P 500 had essentially called the closing price. The index ended the day up 0.53%. Another day, another all-time high.

Meanwhile the yield on the 10-year note closed at 2.94%, more than double its interim low of 1.43% in July of last year.

Here is a 5-minute look today with a bit of Friday afternoon for context.

On the daily chart we see that volume anticipated the holiday recess.

The SPY ETF is a better look at the individual investor's mindset. Volume was even lower, and today's candlestick is a model of levitation.

The S&P 500 is now up 28.17% for 2013.

Click for a larger image

Click for a larger image

For a better sense of how these declines figure into a larger historical context, here's a long-term view of secular bull and bear markets in the S&P Composite since 1871.