Big thanks to Ryan Paisey for covering for Justin for the past three days. We'll have him back soon and you can follow him @priapusIQ on twitter in the meantime.

For today, the US economic calendar gets much more lively, starting with US GDP at the bottom of the hour. It's the final Q3 release so it's stale at this point and highly unlikely to move the market but at least it's some news to digest.

The more-notable releases come at 10 am ET (1500 GMT) with US consumer confidence and existing home sales. Confidence is expected to rise to 110.8 from 105.0 while home sales are forecast at 6.52m from 6.33m. I expect confidence to bounce around for awhile but housing -- I believe -- is in a secular bull market that will last years and I think the market is starting to tune into that.

At 10:30 am ET, the weekly US petroleum inventories report is due. The private data late yesterday was bullish for crude but WTI is trading flat today.