Forget the taxes. Forget the cuts. Everybody gets something.

The stock market indices ended mixed on the session on options expiration day. The technicals were slightly positive, and a lot of individual stocks we watch actually had a fairly strong session.

Applied Materials (AMAT) was the beneficiary of a Barclay's upgrade this morning.

Dr. Adrian Manz analyzes the major markets, stock sectors, and individual stocks for December 17.

Dave Landry takes a one-minute look at the stock market in his video for December 17.

With triple witching options expiration upon us, it will be interesting to see if today's action can shake the market loose from five consecutive days of consolidation. Overall, market activity has been noticeably light for an options expiration week.

The Nasdaq 100 registered an inside pattern following yesterday’s action, and there is a possible double top pattern evolving as the current level is almost exactly the multi-year high achieved in November 2007.

Download Adrian Manz's Around The Horn Intraday Trading Plan PDF for December 16.

Investors were encouraged recently because small businesses had turned optimistic.  Yet the level of optimism is still lower than it was in the last 20 years.

The stock market indices managed to hold onto morning gains in the afternoon, with a bullish consolidation and late snapback that closed them not far off the session highs, ending with a rather nice session.