Market Preview: The Slow Melt-Up Continues

Updated from 6:58 p.m. ET to include commentary on existing home sales, reference to Apple hitting a new 52-week high.

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- The slow melt-up continues.

One of the hallmarks of 2011 was extreme volatility, especially in the final few months of the year. Triple-digit swings in the Dow Jones Industrial Average seemed to occur every other day for a while there after Standard & Poor's downgraded the United States' credit rating in early August. The blue-chip index ranged across more than 400 points alone on Oct. 4.

2012 has been a very different story though. While the first session of the year on Jan. 3 saw the Dow sprint out of the gate with a 180-point gain, that's the only time the index has swung more than 100 points one way or the other so far this year. Wednesday's 97-point advance was close but no cigar. The tight 60-point trading range on Thursday was the lowest since Dec. 27, according to Dow Jones Indexes.

Overall, the results have obviously been quite positive with the Dow rising in eight of the first 12 trading days of 2012 through Thursday, booking a 3.3% gain. The S&P 500 is up 4.4% on a price basis after its flat 2011.

But there's also been some criticism about how the strength has been mostly in large-caps and volumes aren't providing much validation. After all, slow gains can be wiped out awful fast.

Suffices to say, the bulls would eventually like to see a high-volume surge that sends the Dow up a couple hundred points or so, if only so they can puff out their chests a bit.

Credit Suisse is a believer though. The firm lifted its year-end target for the S&P 500 by 8% to 1400 from 1340 on Thursday, adding enticingly that it sees "a significant likelihood of an overshoot near term."

The firm's case for the boost is pretty straightforward. In the main, it's very encouraged by the European Central Bank's long-term refinancing operation and believes improving U.S. economic data has reduced the risk of the country sliding back into recession.

"The ECB's 3-year LTRO is a potential game changer: it is printing money; could be exceptionally large; could drive the euro to levels required to stop the recession; is driving the three-year bond yield to levels consistent with temporary debt sustainability in Italy and Spain; and, critically, it is a form of debt mutualization (as the haircuts applied to collateral are too low) that is less emotive for the German public than QE [quantitative easing] or the SMP [securities market program]," the firm said.