The evidence has been clear for the last few months that the U.S. economy was accelerating in the second half, and toward the close. The jobs market, long a lagging indicator, is showing some signs of catching up. Expectations had been for Friday morning's December  jobs release, thanks to the ADP  report on Thursday  that suggested the private sector created 325,000 jobs in the month. The ADP report tends to be somewhat exuberant in December, and doesn't account for the public sector, which has reliably been hacking jobs.

Still, the December report contained a fair amount of good news — for people on Main Street, and for the people in the White House...........

The Santa Claus rally delivered again! Whether you're buying it or choose to ignore seasonal trends, there are very early signs of strength in the market this year according to some widely followed statistics. While the numbers may not change your investments, they're often used as small indicators of where the broader market is heading.

The traditional Santa Claus rally, as defined by the  Stock Trader's Almanac  is " the propensity for the S& P to rally the last five trading days of December and the first two of January an average of 1.5% since 1950." This year's seasonal gift sent the  S& P 500  and the  Nasdaq  up 1.9%, and the  Dow Jones Industrial Average  up 1.6% during the seven trading sessions from 12/22/11 through 1/4/12.

" It's the first positive indicator of the year —there are several seasonal indicators," says Jeff Hirsch, president & editor-in-chief of the Stock Trader's Almanac. " It's a good sign a better sign considering a lot of the risks and negative issues out there, so it helps me be comfortable with the positive outlook for 2012."

And it works both ways. If Santa doesn't deliver, it'll have believers ducking for cover, expecting some degree of weakness to prevail throughout the year.

" If there's something really negative going on and the market's down like in 2000 and 2008, it preceded really nasty markets," Hirsch explains. " It's a sign that there's some lifting of the really negative things out there or that they're already baked into the market."

But this is just the beginning. As Hirsch said, there are several widely followed indicators in January, including the entire month itself.