1. Dow edging toward 20,000: Another week's gone by and the Dow is still hovering just below 20,000. On Tuesday the index hit an all-time high of 19,988, but it wasn't able to clear the milestone.
There isn't much significance to the number 20,000 other than an impressive way for stocks to cap off 2016 -- and an indicator of how speedy and robust the post-election stock rally has been.
We're still hoping to release our imaginary balloons onto the NYSE floor next week, but we're not holding our breath. The week between Christmas and New Year's tends to be a quiet one.
In the meantime, CNNMoney's Paul La Monica strolled down memory lane and took a look at what happened to the companies that left the Dow over the past twenty years.
2. Last chance to pull out of the retail slump: It hasn't been an easy year for retailers. Macy's lowered its forecast for the year after disappointing first quarter results, and Target followed suit over the summer. And though Walmart had a good summer, it's having a rough first half of the year — the retailer shuttered stores and saw its shares fall.
Brick and mortar stores are no longer experiencing much of a Black Friday boost, so last-minute holiday shopping could be their final hope.
Amazon (AMZN), on the other hand, continues to sit pretty as the king of e-commerce. More people did holiday shopping at Amazon than at Macy's (M), Walmart (WMT), Target (TGT) and Best Buy (BBY) combined this year.
3. Trump tweet watch continues: Trump's trigger-happy Twitter fingers are causing trouble for American businesses. After he tweeted a threat earlier this month to break Boeing's (BA) Air Force One contract with the government, Boeing's shares dipped. Then, when Trump said he might tap Boeing to replace Lockheed Martin in a deal with pentagon, Lockheed's (LMT) stock fell.
Though Trump has been a boon for the market at large, this tendency to single out companies has some fearing his Twitter wrath in the new year.
But maybe they shouldn't worry: The stocks of 10 U.S. companies that Donald Trump took jabs at during the campaign and after rose on average, 9% in the month after Election Day (the S&P 500 rose 5% during that same span). Companies including Ford (F), Carrier parent company United Technologies (UTX), and CNN owner Time Warner are all performing well, despite Trump's harsh tweets.
4. Coming this week:
Monday - U.S. markets are closed.
Tuesday - Pending home sales index for November release.
Wednesday - Consumer confidence index for December release.
Thursday - Jobless claims.
Friday - U.S. bond market closes at 2 p.m.
