Yes, I remember, for about four months, during which time those meaningless daily movements of the Dow and other market indices have resulted in the almost doubling of one index (the NASDAQ composite) and a whopping 34 % in the Dow since their lows this year in March.

I guess one could call them meaningless.

I guess tomorrow we could be back to the levels of early March.

I guess the economy could still get much worse.

I agree that our economic recovery still has a long way to go, that uneployment continues to rise and that people are still suffering…just pointing out some positive indicators

Until our balance of trade, our health-care costs, our military spending, our deficits and the distribution of income/wealth are brought under control, the economy is going to keep going down the crapper.

And I don't expect Obama to fix any of these problems.

Yes, I'm sure all the Republicans would agree with you. These are the same Republicans who started saying in November, right after Obama was elected, that the reason the stock market went down was because everyone (whatever that meant) was afraid of what Obama would do.

These are the same Republicans who blamed the stock market drop on Obama once he was in office and the market continued to plunge. These are the same Republicans who pointed to the markets falling in January and Feb. as proof that Obama's stimulus package would not work…. When that stimulus package had not even been voted on yet, and the money distributed.

Yes. Now that Obama has been in office a while, the stimulus package money has been introduced into the economy and the market is up quite a bit, it's not because of anything Obama did. The market is up for other reasons….. Having nothing to do with Obama.

Either one believes the president has some power over the market or not. Republicans like to have it both ways. Blame Obama when things go wrong but give no credit to Obama when things improve.

That aside….. I do agree with Austin that the stock market and the economy are two different things. Personally I feel that we're not out of the woods yet and the market will go down again.

But I'm not concerned over momentary swings of the market. What's more important to me is the unemployment rate and getting people back to work. Once that happens, then the gains of the market will be gains based on a solid foundation, and not momentary gains based on people's perception on what is happening at the moment. Obama's mantra should be: jobs, jobs, jobs.

That said, as I have said before, the market tends towards a 6 month leading indicator, so it is promising news. I still believe that this is going to be a fairly jobless recovery for longer than that, though, given the state of the credit markets.

Let me ask you, it the markets had crashed today, would that have had something “to do with Obama”?

Exactly right. The market is outperforming some truly ruinous predictions, so it is better than expected.

Companies that shed employees normally experience short term earnings gains and a rise in their stock prices. It’s basic cost cutting to improve profits.

The trend line looks like Wall Street will be back to paying exceptional bonuses while unemployment reaches the low teens by the midterm elections next year. I expect the bond traders to vote heavily Democratic……..

For the rest of the voters – not so much.

The Republicans understand that the best way to rally their supporters is to have an enemy.

Their scare tactics were wrong under eight years of Bush/Cheney and their scare tactics continue to be wrong today.

I'm amazed that more hasn't been made of DeMint's comment about wanting to bring Obama down…. If the Dems has said anything remotely similar about Bush, every Republican from Limbaugh to Bush woudl have called the Dems unpatriotic. Actually…. Rush would have called such people terrorists and terrorists sympathizers.

I'm sure that you would have written the same sort of post in February of 2000.