Amazon.com Inc. was among the top equity performers after the e-commerce giant reported a “record breaking” holiday season. Ten-year Treasury yields fluctuated around 1.9% while the dollar slipped versus major peers as U.S. jobless claims data came in close to expectations. The Japanese yen headed for its biggest drop in two weeks.

European markets remained shuttered. Shares ended higher in Tokyo, Shanghai and Seoul, while exchanges were closed in Hong Kong and Sydney.

Investors are pushing the $51 trillion MSCI ACWI index of global stocks toward a more-than 8% advance in the final three months of the year, a quarterly performance only bettered a handful of times in the past decade. As traders digest data showing strong consumer confidence, attention now turns to January, when they’ll look for the U.S. and China to consummate a phase-one trade agreement.

“The consumer continues to be shown as the supporting pillar,” said Tim Courtney, chief investment officer at Exencial Wealth Advisors. “They’re continuing to spend and they’re not cutting back.”

In China, the overnight repo rate fell to the lowest level since 2009 Thursday in wake of recent liquidity injections by the central bank.

Elsewhere, the pound rose for a third session. Crude oil climbed above $61 a barrel in New York. Gold advanced beyond $1,500 an ounce, having increased every session this week.

Here are some events that may be of interest this week:

–Japan retail sales and industrial production are scheduled for Friday.

And here are some of the major market moves:

Stocks

–The S&P 500 index gained 0.5% at the close of trading in New York; the Nasdaq added 0.8%.

–The MSCI Asia Pacific index rose 0.2%.

–The MSCI All-Country World index added 0.3%.

Currencies

–The Bloomberg Dollar Spot index dipped 0.2%.

–The British pound increased 0.3% to $1.3002.

–The euro rose 0.1% to $1.11.

–The Japanese yen weakened 0.2% to 109.64 per dollar.

Bonds

–The yield on 10-year Treasuries slipped one basis point to 1.89%.

–The yield on two-year Treasuries rose one basis point to 1.63%.

Commodities

–West Texas Intermediate crude futures increased 0.9% to $61.63 a barrel.

–Gold gained 0.8% to $1,511.58 an ounce.

Futures rose as much as 0.9% in New York, gaining for a third straight session as trading resumed after the Christmas break. Prices are up about 11% in December. The American Petroleum Institute reported that U.S. stockpiles dropped 7.9 million barrels last week, while Russia cut crude output.

That inventory decrease would be the largest since August if confirmed by government data on Friday. A median forecast of nine analysts in a Bloomberg survey predicts a smaller drop of 1.5 million barrels. Meanwhile, Russia reduced production by 240,000 barrels a day in the first 24 days of December, Interfax reported, citing Energy Minister Alexander Novak.

Oil has surged 36% so far this year, with prices recently supported by a breakthrough in the trade impasse between the the world’s top two economies. Futures have also been boosted by output cuts made by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies. Production growth in the U.S. has also tapered off.

“A lot of the recent strength in oil prices has been speculative fund flows and short covering in the front months into year-end 2019.” said Leo Mariani, an analyst at Keybanc Capital Markets. “We think there is a good chance that oil prices will be higher in several years as non-OPEC production growth slows materially into the next decade.”

Hedge funds boosted bets on rising U.S. crude prices to the highest level in more than seven months during the week ended Dec. 17, data released Friday show.

West Texas Intermediate for February delivery climbed as much as 57 cents to $61.68 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and traded up 47 cents at $61.58 as of 9:49 a.m. local time. A close at current levels would be the highest since mid-September. Markets were shut Wednesday for Christmas.

Brent for February settlement rose 45 cents to $67.65 a barrel. Prices rose 81 cents to $67.20 on Tuesday, and are up about 8% so far this month. The spread between the global benchmark crude and WTI was at $6.08.

Chinese data on Wednesday showed imports of U.S. soybeans surged to the highest in about two years, while President Donald Trump said a trade pact between the two nations is “done.” He added the two sides are working on translation and paperwork, suggesting a deal would be signed before a meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

The e-commerce giant said that 5 million new customers started Prime free trials or paid memberships globally, while the number of items that were delivered with one-day or same-day shipping quadrupled compared to last holiday season. Independent third-party sellers, meanwhile, sold more than a billion items, Amazon said.

Amazon didn’t release specific sales figures, but its statement backs up broader reports that shopping — particularly of the online variety — picked up this year. Web sales in the U.S. during the holiday season grew almost 19% compared to last year, according to Mastercard Spending Pulse data, which tracked sales from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24. That’s more than five times greater than overall holiday sales growth, which was 3.4%. Online sales now make up almost 15% of total retail sales during the holiday, according to Mastercard.

The holiday season generates about a fifth of retailers’ revenue each year in the U.S., according to the National Retail Federation. It can be even higher for specialized companies like toy and game stores.

Big-box chains like Target Corp. and department stores like Macy’s Inc. are broadening their digital offerings with options like buying online and picking up in store, or BOPIS. While Mastercard data showed that overall sales for department stores declined 1.8% in the holiday period, e-commerce sales grew 6.9%. Specialty apparel, jewelry and electronics also registered e-commerce growth.

The policy statement issued by the State Council, China’s Cabinet, included a pledge to relax the country’s household registration system, which has been criticized as discriminatory and a deterrent to urbanization. Authorities will also make it easier to move between employers and improve incentive systems aimed at encouraging workers to go to less developed regions.

These are the latest in a slew of policy announcements Beijing has made in the final weeks of 2019 after President Xi Jinping led a December meeting of top officials to plan out the coming year’s economic priorities. The readout from that conclave signaled both an aversion to broad-based stimulus and an emphasis on spurring “new drivers of growth” through reform.

In addition to labor, the State Council has in the past week also unveiled steps to improve the efficiency of state-owned enterprises, stabilize employment, and bolster the role of private-sector businesses in the economy. Premier Li Keqiang also pledged last week to give foreign investors greater access to the country’s service sectors including finance and health care.

Xi, in an article published Dec. 15 in Qiushi magazine, also touted the importance of so-called city clusters as part of China’s urbanization strategy. In it, he describe the need for policies that promote the fair and reasonable movement of the factors of production – capital, land, enterprise and labor – so that they can aggregate effectively.

China’s household registration system has been cited by a number of economists as one hurdle to such movement. It ties the ability of Chinese citizens to access public services to the city where their household is registered. The difficulty of changing that registration, commonly knows as a person’s hukou, has left many migrants unable to fully benefit from public services for education and health.

The steps outlined by the State Council would eliminate the hukou system in cities with less than 3 million residents and relax it in cities with populations of 3-5 million. For cities home to more than 5 million, such as Beijing and Shanghai, the household registration system will be simplified, it said, without giving details. These steps mirror policies released by the National Development and Reform Commission in April.

This policy change would effectively eliminate the hukou hurdle for most of China. Out of almost 300 prefecture-level cities, only 27 have populations exceeding 3 million, according to I-City Media, which analyzed data from the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development.

Markets reacted positively to the news. An index tracking shares of property developers listed in Shanghai rose by 2.9%, the most since September 4, while China’s benchmark CSI 300 index gained 0.9% on Thursday.

“It’s the first time the central government has announced clear-cut detailed hukou reform,” said Yan Yuejin, lead analyst at E-House China Enterprise Holdings Ltd.’s research institute. “Loosening hukou may spark home-buying demand in some tier-3 and tier-4 cities.”

Spot bullion advanced for a fourth day, the best run since October, and headed for the highest close in more than seven weeks. The metal is on pace for biggest annual gain since 2010.

The break through $1,500 in the face of new highs in U.S. equities, a rebound in U.S. Treasury yields and a strong dollar “leads to an assumption that bulls will buy in the New Year, so the market is trying to position ahead of time,” said Tai Wong, the head of metals derivatives trading at BMO Capital Markets. “It has momentum that is a little mysterious and no one wants to stand in the way.”

The climb comes amid a focus on whether the Federal Reserve’s rate-cutting pause will hold next year following three reductions in 2019.

“Without a dovish Fed pivot, it’s unlikely gold will make explosive gains, but it does appear the market is trying to carve out a new higher trading range,” Stephen Innes, chief Asia market strategist at AxiTrader, said in a note. That current trend “is a very favorable sign for gold bulls,” he said.

Gold is up about 18% this year as investors weigh the benefit of havens amid the to-and-fro of the U.S.-China trade war and a run of central-bank easing. The latest tick higher came even as Donald Trump said Tuesday a deal with Beijing is “done.”

“Caution needs to be exercised as the bullion markets could be extremely volatile, given the market’s low liquidity profile, especially to the downside as trade news remains positive and equity markets still scaling new heights,” Innes said.

Spot gold advanced 0.6% to $1,509.10 an ounce at 9:06 a.m. in New York, according to Bloomberg genmeric pricing. Spot silver climbed 1.3% and platinum gained 1.6%. Palladium was also higher.

In the futures market, gold for February delivery rose 0.6% to $1,513.30 on the Comex. Call options giving the right to buy bullion for January delivery at $1,525 were the most actively traded, with 856 lots changing hands.

Spot bullion peaked at $1,557.11 in early September, the highest price in more than six years. Global holdings in gold-backed exchange-traded funds have also expanded in 2019.

Heading into the new year, there are mixed views on gold’s prospects. Earlier this month, JPMorgan Chase & Co. advised betting on gold to slide as the global economy gathers momentum. Among the bulls, Goldman Sachs and UBS Group see prices climbing to $1,600 an ounce.

Other precious metals have also fared well. Palladium — touched a record $2,000.35 an ounce last week, and is up 50% this year. Platinum has gained 20% in 2019.