Santa's sled is pulling into view as US shares started on the front foot on Wednesday.
Along with European indices, Wall Street shares were moving north as the Santa rally kicked in - the benchmark Dow Jones rose 112 to 17,529.
The broader based S&P500 added 14 to 2,054 and the Nasdaq index added 34 to 5,035.
In London, FTSE100 was 145 points higher at the time of writing, to 6,227.
Oil continued its upward trajectory too - with the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate adding 2.41% to go to US$37.01 a barrel.
It came as the powerful cartel - the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said prices will gradually recover in coming years.
Spot gold, however, was around half a per cent lower at US$1,069 an ounce.
A notable gainer was digital entertainment firm Rovi Corp (NASDAQ:ROVI), which advanced over 32% after announcing it has extended its current contract with telecoms giant AT&T by 7 years.
This will reportedly allow AT&T to continue to access the company’s entertainment discovery patent portfolio...
MARKET PREVIEW
Christmas cheer does seem to have hit US markets and shares are expected to open higher on Wall Street.
It's the last full day of trading before the holiday and volumes are likely to be thin.
The Dow Jones closed ahead yesterday by 165 points at 17, 417 while the broader S&P500 added nearly 18 to go to 2,038.
The tech heavy Nasdaq added 32 to close the session out at 5,001.
Today Dow futures are up 34, while S&P500 are up 2.5 and Nasdaq futures are nearly ten points to the good.
West Texas Intermediate oil is up by again today - by one per cent to US$36.50 a barrel, having seen rises yesterday as ended the day at a premium to the European benchmark, Brent for the first time in more than five years.
However, Bernard Aw, at City spreadbetter IG Index, said..."... the fundamentals in the oil market remains quite bearish, as the US oil rig count is starting to increase, and US crude inventories remain around 130 million barrels above its five-year average.
"Coupled with the high level of supply from OPEC members, the oversupply is set to continue into 2016."
In corporate matters, Nike (NYSE:NKE), the sports shoe giant, saw shares add 1.53% in pre-market deals after it bear earnings expectations