During the financial crisis, we created our Bank and Broker CDS (credit default swap) index to track the default risk of the major financial firms around the world, and we continue to track the index to this day.  Below is a chart of our CDS index (blue line) compared to a chart of the S&P 500 Financial sector (green line) going back to June 2008. 

Source: WHO/Christopher Black

Next week is the week before the Christmas holiday, and below we highlight how the S&P 500 has historically performed during this week.  As shown, both recently and longer term, the S&P 500 has averaged nice gains during the week before Christmas.  Over the last ten years, the index has averaged a gain of 0.43%.  Over the last 20 years -- 0.81%, 50 years -- 0.51%, and 100 years -- 0.30%.  Since 1928, the S&P 500 has averaged a gain of 0.15% during all one-week periods, so the S&P 500 has historically doubled the average weekly return in the week before Christmas.

The pace of filings of class actions under federal securities and commodity laws is relatively steady in 2011 as compared to the past three years, according to NERA Economic Consulting. Behind this apparently steady number, however, was a substantial shift in the composition of cases filed. Two types of suits have primarily accounted for this compositional shift: M&A objection suits and suits involving Chinese companies listed in the US.