“We’re mere hours away from going off the so-called fiscal cliff, and by the market’s reaction this morning, you’d think it’s not as big a deal as most people think,” Travis Hoium writes for The Motley Fool. “As the day moved along, markets popped further on hope of a pending deal. Late in trading, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has gained 0.22% and the S&P 500 is up 0.61%.”

“One reason markets haven’t dropped today is the belief that a last-minute deal will get done, possibly in the next few hours. Congress and the White House have been working on a small deal that would avert some of the fiscal cliff, and when President Obama spoke at 1:30 ET, it sounded as if a deal was very close,” Hoium writes. “But there’s still no certainty that a deal will pass both houses of Congress, so there are a lot of questions outstanding. Investors will need to hold on tight if a deal isn’t reached by Wednesday, when markets open again.”

Read more in the full article here.