Welcome to this early edition of closing bell. I'm Mike Santoli in for Scott Wapner.

This make-a-break hour starts with another month in the books just about with the numbers printed in green.

Scott stocks capping November with another record in a shortened post-holiday session.

Here's a look at our scorecard with 60 minutes to go in regulation ahead of that 1 p.m. Eastern time closed. The S&P 500 levitating to what would be its 53rd all-time high of the year up

0.65% right now. You also see the Dow above 45,000 will be its close first close above that level ever. The NASDAQ is outperforming by a bit for a bit of a

change. It's adding about 9 tenths of 1% semiconductors in bounceback mode. They've been a real

drag on the big cap indexes for a while and they are up nicely today. Yields pulling back

further from what we're seen as potentially challenging levels,

the 10-year retreating to just about 4.2%, perhaps helped by some month-end reallocations into bonds

after that asset class has lagged a bit. That takes us to our talk of the tape with the S&P 500

up 26% for 2024, year-end seasonal factors, they're still favorable.

And the soft landing debate settled for now in favor of the economic optimists.

Is there much left to impress investors heading into next year?

Here to take on that question.

Tom Lee of Fundstra.

He joins me at Post 9, also a CNBC contributor.

Tom, good to see you.

Thanks for coming in.

Great to see, Mike.

So we can stack up all the positives.

I mean, I know you've been kind of in gear with that idea that the economy would power

through, inflation would come down.

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