By Wallace Witkowski, MarketWatch

SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Stocks will likely climb higher in the traditionally low-volume Christmas-foreshortened trading week following last week's big boost from a dovish Federal Reserve.

Last week, stocks had their best two days in a row in years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJI) and the S&P 500 Index (SPX) both closed the week up more than 3%, and the Nasdaq Composite Index (RIXF) rose 2.4%.

Based on the tendency of strong Decembers to continue into January coupled with the low trading volumes that tend to cap the year, stocks may very well end the year at record highs, according to Randy Frederick, managing director of trading and derivatives at Charles Schwab.

Over the past 36 years, December has been a strong month for stocks 28 times, according to Frederick. Of those years, the strong December has led into a strong January 20 times, or about 70% of the time. A key exception was this year, when stocks tanked in January after a strong December.

Since the beginning of 2013, Frederick pointed out that there have been nine times where the S&P 500 Index has dipped below its 100-day moving average. Out of those times, the S&P 500 has bounced back within a few days every time except this past October.

"In October, there was an irrational fear of Ebola," Frederick said, adding that once that subsided, stocks went back to carving out new record highs.

Following last week's Federal Open Market Committee statement that the Fed can be "patient" about raising rates in 2015, there are very few market catalysts in place before the end of the year. Trading volumes last week were 12% to 25% above the December average of 7.58 billion shares.

Volume is expected to drop off considerably in the holiday week, and those lower volumes will likely benefit a higher march for stocks, Frederick said.

Combined trading volumes of NYSE, Nasdaq & Amex stocks

 
Year Trading day before Christmas Trading day after Christmas December average volume 
2013 2.58 billion                 3.82 billion                5.83 billion 
2012 2.27 billion                 4.03 billion                5.98 billion 
2011 3.82 billion                 3.65 billion                6.36 billion

A smattering of economic data will be coming out in the shortened trading week.

November existing home sales comes out Tuesday. On Wednesday, GDP data, December consumer sentiment figures and November new home sales data comes out.

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