Last year with more bearish sentiment we had drawn out top from 6th to 14th.
Options expiry is 16th and market still wants to wallow in the bonus and 401K money coming in early January.
Still way too much cash around in hands of bulls to have perceptible decline until post expiry IMO.
So week before expiry is right inside your Jan 6th target. Max pain and delta hedging gets market churning from here on in. IMO 2-4% higher from here before they comfortable with settlement prices followed by a flattish second week of month of Jan.
Still all long and not too many price targets reached yet. MRK and C getting close.