NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Consumer prices tumbled, sending inflation to nearly a 38-year low, while the current account deficit shrank more than was expected. Meanwhile, industrial production showed its biggest monthly gain in four years, and single family housing starts rose to a record high in November.

Foreign investment in the US turned negative, implying that the financing of the current account deficit might be shakier, but why look too closely at unpleasant things? The Dow closed up 106.74 at 10129.56, while the Nasdaq squeaked up 6.03 to 1924.29.

STOCK STUFF Blue chips were on fire, but tech stocks weren't so charged. Oracle gained 42 cents to $13.12 after announcing earnings last night; Motorola jumped 54 cents to $13.33 after naming Ed Zander, the former president of Sun, as CEO. Chip stocks sank, pulling down the Nasdaq, due to worries that soggy sales of gadgets will result in lower sales of chips.

The holiday blues are spreading, as a string of big companies (Wal-Mart, Target, Pier One) have announced that consumers aren't binging for Christmas.

Immucor (the ticker, BLUD, says it all) fell $2.93 to $18.68 on word that earnings would miss estimates. And Honeywell shed 34 cents to $30.49 after forecasting an up to 9 percent decrease in 2004 earnings due to higher pension costs and post-retirement benefit expenses. Last but never least, GE added 32 cents to $30.65 thanks to optimistic words about the "modern GE," as Immelt calls it, at its analyst meeting.

SUITS AND STOCKS It looks more and more like the furor over Dick Grasso's pay package was a red herring. CalPERS, the biggest US pension fund, filed a class action lawsuit against the NYSE and seven of its specialist trading firms. Calpers alleges that the defendants "employed devices, contrivances, manipulations and artifices to defraud, made false and misleading statements and concealed material facts and engaged in a scheme to defraud investors..."

Calpers also claimed that the specialist firms "for years have routinely engaged in wide-ranging manipulative, self-dealing, deceptive and misleading conduct." Whew. "LAB is a terminal short," says one market watcher, referring to publicly traded LaBranche, which was among those named in the suit. Today, LaBranche lost 71 cents, or 7 percent, to $9.32. Other defendants include Goldman Sachs, which owns Spear Leeds, and FleetBoston.

Investment bank Samuel A. Ramirez is launching a new index to track the fortunes of the 10 largest and most heavily traded Hispanic companies in the US and Puerto Rico....

A new survey from Nielsen/Net Ratings says that consumers spent $2.7 billion online last week, an increase of 85 percent over the same week in 2002. One of the top reasons shoppers gave for choosing to purchase online: lower prices....

Merrill's Rich Bernstein says that the consumer staples sector is one of the most underweighted by mutual funds. Yet in the last profits slowdown, this sector was one of the best performers. Bernstein calls it a "very good contrary opportunity"....

Has Tyco, which has soared some 40 percent since August, truly turned the corner? Albert Meyer, who identified many of Tyco's issues early on, says it's too soon to tell. "Non-recurring charges keep recurring, growth is illusive, and earnings per share is mired in the mid-to-low thirty cents range, that is, excluding the ever-present charges," he writes. Meyer doesn't recommend shorting the stock -- he just says stay away...

Merrill also reports that 71 percent of fund managers expect equity markets to be higher a year from now. Oh dear...

Bear Wagner head John Mulheren passed away after suffering a heart attack last night. Hard to believe such a force of personality could be gone....

Could Saddam be a spokesman? So goes the latest spoof. "I have been captured. My regime has fallen and my sons are dead. But I have some good news... I just saved hundreds on my car insurance by switching to Geico!"