* The first session of the last week of December is proceeding in a rather mixed mood. Most indices are losing.
* Wall Street starts the day with declines, but we are now seeing the US500 make a small rebound, while the US100 gains over 0.4%.
* Despite the mixed sentiment regarding Black Friday sales results, we are seeing gains from giants such as Amazon and Walmart. Gains also came from smaller stocks like Shopify, which sold more than $4bn worth of products last Friday.
* The session in Europe ended mostly lower. Germany's DAX lost nearly 0.39% intraday, France's CAC40 lost 0.37% and the Euro Stoxx 50 benchmark was down 0.39%.
* EURUSD remains high. Lagarde indicated that inflation could return. The biggest movements on the major pairs today were seen on AUDUSD (around +0.3%) and USDJPY (-0.44%).
* Crude oil tried to cap some losses in the face of news that a consensus is building for a production cut at the OPEC+ meeting on Thursday. On the other hand, Saudi Arabia wants the cut the most (but is not going to cut more itself) and other countries are not so sure about it.
* Strong gains were seen today on SILVER (1.4%) and GOLD (0.44%), which is struggling to close above $2,000 level this month. Platinum and palladium lost more than 1.5%.
* US natural gas prices have started the new week with a strong downward movement, with NATGAS trading down almost 2.5% at the time of publication. The forecast for warmer weather in the US in the near future is putting pressure on natural gas prices as it points to lower demand at the start of the heating season.
* US new home sales came in much weaker at 679,000 against expectations of 721,000 and the previous level of 759,000.
* Most cryptocurrencies are down today. Bitcoin is losing nearly 1.8% and Ethereum almost 3.4%.