The bears are hibernating for winter it would seem.

Before we discuss the events of the past week and the week ahead, I want to point you to a piece we will publish on Wednesday written by my colleague Robert Murphy. After this year’s surge in Bitcoin, Mr Murphy analyses how one can estimate its value using the well-known quantity theory of money equation MV=PT. Depending on your assumptions, Bitcoin could be worth anything between. Read the article on Wednesday, and you will find out.

It was another solid if unspectacular, week for the S&P 500, which managed to add to the modest gains made last month. There also seems to be no let-up in investor appetite for technology shares, with the Nasdaq gaining another 3% on the week. The Stoxx 50, Europe’s leading blue-chip index, had a particularly strong week despite the ongoing political uncertainties in both Germany and France. Even the euro made modest gains over the past five days.

Friday’s employment data was just about right, as the number of jobs created came in at 227,000, which was in line with expectations. The unemployment rate notched a little higher at 4.2%. Despite this uptick after the hurricane-affected number in October, the trend in the labour market toward slower growth remains. If one adds October and November together, 260,000 jobs created in that time are well below the 190,000 monthly average over the past year. Average earnings were up 4% from a year ago, above the current inflation rate of 2.6%. In other news, the latest Michigan Consumer confidence was described by Pantheon Macro as underwhelming as the 3.5-point increase in the headline index between October and December this year is far smaller than the 11-point surge seen around President-elect Trump’s first election win in the same months in 2016.

We get the monthly CPI report this week. Expectations are for another modest rise in US inflation from 2.6% to 2.7%. Last week’s data will probably be enough to confirm the Fed’s 25 basis point cut, subject slightly to a CPI report that comes in around the market expectations.

Looking at the UK week ahead, we will get the KPMG REC jobs report later today. The PMI and DMP surveys report slowing employment growth after the Chancellor’s employers’ payroll tax increase weighed on hiring sentiment; today’s report will likely reinforce this point. At the end of the week, we get the GfK consumer confidence report; we shall see if November’s interest rate cut helped boost sentiment. We shall also find out if there is a bounce back in economic growth in the monthly GDP report. We also get the BofE inflation attitudes survey, which is likely to increase inflation expectations, partly driven by higher energy prices.

As we close in on the final few weeks of the year, no doubt those who have ridden the S&P tech wave will have had a good year and probably feel optimistic for the coming years. Those who have not are probably thinking about what to do now. There is nothing cheap about the S&P 500, but that may not stop it going higher. At some point, greed will take over fear, as it always does. As Mr Gross points out Bitcoin is rallying to the moon, meme stocks are surging for no good reason, and bearish bets are cratering all at once; it feels like we are getting closer to that point. As we often say, markets can stay irrational longer than an investor can stay solvent. Corrections are swift and painful and would make an unwelcome Christmas present.