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Stocks rose last week with all the excitement of water turning to ice in the freezer.

I kept hitting the side of my monitor to see if the pixels were stuck -- but no, it was just another one of those low-volume, low-drama late-December sessions that we have come to know and love.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.12%, the Standard & Poor's 500 Index fell 0.16%, the Nasdaq Composite Index fell 0.08% and the Russell 2000 small caps fell 0.2%. Overseas developed and emerging markets were exactly the same. The liveliest U.S. sector was health care and basic materials, up 0.2%, while financials and industrials lagged, down 0.4%.

Breadth slightly favored decliners over advancers by a 3-2 margin, and the number of new highs was way down at 394 -- yet so was the number of new lows, at 34. Gold fell by 0.4%, crude oil jumped out to a new two-year high by 1.1%, to $91.51, and the grains jumped to a new one-year high as well, led by corn.