Thank you, Brian, and welcome to closing bell. I'm Mike Santoli in for Scott Wapner.

This make-a-break hour starts with stocks hovering just below record highs as the Bulls work to preserve a third year of extraordinary gains, and the Santa Claus rally hangs in the balance.

Here's your scorecard with 60 minutes to go in the session. The S&P 500, as you see, nearly flat, sitting on a 17% plus gain for the year. The NASDAQ, pretty much unchanged as well. The Russell 2000 is the underperformer, just a slight defensive tone there. The Russell off by half a percent. A little bit of life and energy. Otherwise, it's pretty much churning in place this

market. Coming up, the big reveal, my longtime source for sharp market insights, who's come to

be known as the mystery broker, will be here in just a few minutes to tell his story and offer

a provocative market outlook. But first, our talk of the tape where we ask whether the market's

two months sideways action means the bull market is stalling or merely resting. Let's ask

Trivariates, Adam Parker, Wilmington, Trust, Megan Schew and Wells Fargo's Scott Wren, Adam and

Megan, RCNBC contributors. And thanks to you all for helping to wrap up the year for us.

Megan, let me start with you. I mean, the S&P is right where it was a couple of months ago.

There's been some subtle rotation in favor of cyclicals. So it's kind of slowed down,

but it's obviously still in a decent position. Is this giving us any kind of a preview for what

you expect into next year?

Thanks, Mike. I think it is. I think as we look towards next year, we're expecting a little bit more

volatility than we saw, at least for the first two-thirds of this year, a little bit more focus

on the source of spending when it comes to tech. We started the year where it was really

just all about the AI trade and investors didn't really, weren't really deterred by the amount

of spending coming from those companies. But now it's really about whether that's being spent

from cash or debt markets are being tapped. So I think

that's a shift that we're seeing. I think that will lend itself towards more of a focus and better

performance from higher quality names, which really lagged last year. But I do think to your original

setup, I think this is a healthy sort of churn as we reset for the next leg of the bowl

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