It doesn’t take much buying power to get a Christmas rally going — only the seasonal absence of sellers, along with a steady flow of short-covering by bears who have thrown in the towel on December. Both factors are in evidence now, although not powerfully so, and we should therefore expect portfolio managers to make hay while no one is watching or cares.  This could set up bears for a big score in January, since it is a given that any agreement on Capitol Hill that purports to get us past the so-called fiscal cliff will be political theater with no impact on the toxic growth of U.S. debt nor the economy’s slide into recession.