YAHOO [BRIEFING.COM]: Although the traditional "Santa Claus rally" period didn't officially start until today, Santa came early this year with a greater than 3.5% gain in equities on the week, which recoups last week's loss and then some. The S&P is now roughly flat on the year as we approach the final week of 2011.

While the action was constructive, this week was relatively quiet in terms of news flow. The week did start with a big piece of international news - the death of North Korea's dictator Kim Jong Il. That event caused initial uncertainty across Asia as his son Kim Jong Un stepped into control. However, after initial weakness on Monday, most Asian markets spent the rest of the week advancing along with their western counterparts.

After a lackluster Monday performance, markets got a substantial lift on Tuesday following encouraging German sentiment data and a better-than-expected Spanish bond auction. After Tuesday's 3% gain, stocks edged higher on Wednesday and Thursday, amid relatively light corporate news flow and generally encouraging economic data. On Thursday, initial jobless claims data, the Michigan sentiment revision and leading indicators data all beat expectations, although the revision to Q3 GDP came in below expectations. Last night, Congress agreed to a two-month extension of the payroll tax cut and unemployment benefits, temporarily lifting some domestic political uncertainty. This morning, while the Nov. durable goods data beat expectations, spending came in below expectations and excluding aircraft, the durables orders weren't as strong as the headline number. However, markets managed to see follow-through strength to end the day higher by 0.7%.

The dollar index remained in positive territory all session today, which didn't affect commodities much.

In the energy space, crude oil remained in positive territory all session and ran as high as $100.27 during afternoon activity. Crude pulled back to the $99.50 area and finish its floor trading session under the $100 mark. Natural gas chopped around until the afternoon session, but then lost steam and began to steadily move lower. The energy component fell back to its previously hit session low of $3.11 and finished the day just above that level. The energy component finished 5 cents lower at $3.12/MMBtu.

In metals space, gold spent the majority of the day in negative territory, but displayed little volatility and traded in a narrow range in today's quiet session. Gold ended the day $3.10 lower at $1607.40/oz. Silver, on the other hand, spent most of today's session in positive territory, but sold off just as the afternoon session was beginning. The precious metal managed to stay above the $29.00 level and fell as low as $29.03. For the rest of its floor trading session, silver traded between that low and $29.17 and ended today's session 2 cents higher to $29.16/oz. March copper ended higher by 4 cents at $3.47.

Corporate news flow was light throughout the week. Oracle's (ORCL 26.06, +0.37) disappointing earnings report sent its stock down 12% on Wednesday, while American Greetings (AM 12.97, -0.42) fell 24% in the two days following its earnings report. There were a few pieces of M&A news announced, with WCA Waste Corp (WCAA 6.62, +0.23) being acquired by Macquarie Infrastructure Partners II for $6.50 per share in cash, representing a 33% premium. Delphi Financial (DFG 44.13, +0.12) gained more than 70% after announcing it would be acquired by Tokio Marine. Finally, Akamai (AKAM 31.93, +0.30) gained 15% after announcing it would acquire privately held content delivery company Cotendo for approximately $268 million. DJ30 +124.05 NASDAQ +19.19 SP500 +11.30 NASDAQ Adv/Vol/Dec 1357/946.8 mln/1175 NYSE Adv/Vol/Dec 2047/464.4 mln/968