Why did the stock market turn in such a strong performance this week. Why did the Dow rise about 10 percent? Why, indeed?

People like to append a logical sounding reason for their behavior, especially when it involves institutions such as the stock market. We thus have heard in recent days such ‘good news’ as a major company’s bond rating that didn’t drop as much as it might have, retail sales falling off less in February than in January, new unemployment numbers that might have been worse, and more rosy predictions from more government and market heavies than you could hit with a stick—though many of these folks certainly deserve a whacking.

All these things are the logical reasons given for the market’s rise. But not the real reason. The real reason is that institutional investors who control so much OPM (Other People’s Money) just got tired of taking losses, and were ready to make their own good news by buying on whims, wind and lather when the most piddling justifications to do appeared.

Is this a bad thing? Nah. It’s actually quite a good thing. If it makes people generally feel better about markets they may shop more, and if they are employers maybe fire less. And when you get right down to it, since the whole ecology of economies is basically sustained by belief or lack thereof, we really needed this kind of boost.

Now if only Pakistan holds together, Israel doesn’t nuke Tehran, no major world leader is assassinated, and a volcano in Indonesia doesn’t turn the world’s summer to winter, we may have a bit of a market-based economic upturn in coming months.