By Greg Peel

The Dow closed up 23 points or 0.3% while the S&P gained 0.3% to 1372 and the Nasdaq added 0.7%.

The irony perhaps is that on the night the Dow finally scrapes over 13,000, for once US economic data releases were mixed. New durable goods orders fell 4.0% in January when economists had expected a 1.3% fall. The fall was widespread across sectors and not simply a result of volatility created by lumpy aircraft orders. However, big gains in the previous two months have orders up 8.8% over 12 months. The Richmond Fed manufacturing index, nevertheless, has risen to 20 this month from 12 last month. Given this is a zero-neutral, rate of expansion index, 20 represents significant acceleration.

The Case-Shiller 20-city house price index fell to a new low in December, marking a 4.0% annual decline. The reading is the lowest since the US housing market peaked in 2006 and indicates just what impact ongoing foreclosures are having on the US housing market. Yet the Conference Board's monthly measure of consumer confidence blew Wall Street away with a gain to 70.8 this month from 61.5 in January when economists had expected 64.5.

As was the case with last week's fortnightly Michigan Uni survey, the expectation is that these high numbers ? and that's the highest in twelve months for the CB measure ? will become peaks now that the price of gasoline has risen into demand destruction territory.

On that note, however, oil continued to pullback last night after its strong run. Brent fell US$2.02 to US$121.85/bbl and West Texas fell US$1.80 to US$106.76/bbl. Perhaps it was oil that provided the "energy" for the final Dow assault.

Ever so quietly, Portugal was granted a tick of approval from the troika last night on its budget tightening progress and thus was given the green light for its next E14bn tranche of the 2011 E78bn bail-out fund. When ever Greece got to this point over the past two years, it would fail the test and usher in frustrating bouts of market volatility on default speculation. Is Portugal well and truly on a sustainable path now? See today's article: