Wall Street’s rocky December could have been much worse

We all kn♑ow December — historically the best month of the year🍨 for stocks — didn’t deliver this year.

It was a particularly strange month for Wall Street, which experienced the all-time worst market drop for the thinly traded half-day of Christmas Eve.

That was followed on the day after Christmas with the single largest point rally ever, with the 😼Dow gaining 1,086 points on heavy volume.

Santa didn’t deliver any coal — he never does — he just showed up a day late for his tradiﷺtional Santa Claus Rally.

Insider buying is at an eight-year high, and sellers are being dwarfed at the best clip since August 2011. In fact, buyers🎃 doubled the amount they purchased during the past two months from just two months prior.

There go any recession theories.

Insiders sell for numerous reasons — financial planning and option expiratio♏n among them. But they buy for only one reason: They know things are fine in their own businesses, and they realize to what degree their companies represent broader industries and the economy at large.

And then shoppers🌠 delivered a nice surprise to Wall Street as well.

Retail sales were the besꩵt 🌞they have been in years, jumping a very strong 5.1 percent from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse.

Further, online sales were up 26.4 per💮cent betw🥃een the Wednesday before Thanksgiving through Black Friday.

Of course, there’s another factor behind the chaotic movement of the markets late in the month: Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell hiked the interest rate a quarter of a percentage point on Dec. 19.

Considering the signs of health exhibited by insider buyers and reflected in the surge ☂in retail sales, let’s hope Santa dropped a note in Powell’s stocking this year saying, “Dear Jay: Stop fighting fake inflation.”