Wall Street’s rocky December could have been much worse

We all know 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 traditional 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 expiration 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 best 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 percent between 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.”