by Calculated Risk on 12/23/2018 08:59:00 PM

Note: Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin put out a strange statement today saying that major banks have told him they "have ample liquidity available for lending". Uh, weird - since no one is concerned about liquidity at this time.

Weekend:
• Schedule for Week of December 23, 2018

• Review: Ten Economic Questions for 2018

Monday:
• At 8:30 AM ET: Chicago Fed National Activity Index for November. This is a composite index of other data.

• At The NYSE and the NASDAQ will close early at 1:00 PM ET.

From CNBC: Pre-Market Data and Bloomberg futures: S&P 500 and DOW futures are up slightly (fair value).

Oil prices were down sharply over the last week with WTI futures at $45.49 per barrel and Brent at $53.58 per barrel.  A year ago, WTI was at $58, and Brent was at $65 - so oil prices are down about 20% year-over-year.

Here is a graph from Gasbuddy.com for nationwide gasoline prices. Nationally prices are at $2.31 per gallon. A year ago prices were at $2.43 per gallon, so gasoline prices are down 12 cents per gallon year-over-year.