We could also party like its 1999!

Changeyou.com went public today at the high end its $14-$16 range, and closed at $20, up 34%.

When's the last time we had a hot IPO?

HTWW - this company is right up your research alley. A chinese company, making on-line games for an asian market, lists itself on the NASDAQ. Is their gaming really popular in China, profitable?

HTWW needs to get back to what it does best, rather than watch the stock ticker all day long....

I was really disappointed that the G20 leaders in London didn't announce a global conflict to stimulate the economy. Today's half-measures just aren't going to be enough to get the global economy back on track.

don't be a bring-down.

I don't get the panic, I don't get the cynicism (any one indicator "proving" something about the larger nature of the economy- I hope you don't play the market! and if you have someone do it for you, I hope they're not so easily swayed), I don't get the Eeyore mentality.

Above all, I don't get the comparisons with a bygone age, absent any critical analysis regarding not only historical similarities, but historical differences.

What's the payoff- for anyone?

I comprehend being angry- even enraged- at irresponsible and arguably criminal investment practices. But it seems to me that simply scoffing at good news in the stock market amounts to resentment that an investor class (a phase that is not synonymous with "ruling class", notwithstanding some significant but hardly definitive correlations) still even manages to exist.

Personally, I don't think this four week rally necessarily means much, one way or the other. But I personally find it encouraging. And unless one is reflexively anti-business, I'm hard-pressed to find reason to see it differently.

Seriously- what do you want- one big Costco, run by the government?

That might sound like a leading straw-man question. But from the general tone of the commentary, it's hard for me to imagine that you'd be happy with anything but a total market wipeout, if not simply having the market surrounded and the traders all clapped in irons when they walk out of the doors.

Ok tovarish, I'll get back in line for shoes and bread. Dasvidonya.

"But it seems to me that simply scoffing at good news in the stock market amounts to resentment that an investor class (a phase that is not synonymous with "ruling class", notwithstanding some significant but hardly definitive correlations) still even manages to exist."

Oh, come now. I scoff at the pollyanna nature of the media which implies that this "four week streak" means anything about the market.

And I think you're way off-base in your interpretation--I'm not at all resentful of the existence of an investor class. I'm not even resentful of the existence of an "elite wealthy" class.

I'm INCREDIBLY resentful that those guys get to run "our" putatively democratic government that fucks me over on a daily basis for their benefit.

What's the word I'm looking for, snide? shallow? facile? ah yes, sophomoric.

With recent reports of over 700,000 job losses in March alone, my question to those promoting the stock market is: where the hell is the money coming from to buy those stocks? Who is investing? Certainly not me. I pulled my 401K out in Jan of '07 and haven't lost much. Perhaps I'm just feeling sore losing out on these gains. But I don't think so.

I think we're seeing more of the Plunge Protection Team in action here. They (the Treasury) is propping up the stock market in an effort to bolster economic confidence. However, if one looks at earnings and checks traditional P/E ratios, it's clear the major stock indexes are still vastly overvalued. Anyone who believes that real economic growth comes from producing a PRODUCT at a sustained PROFIT must look at these illusory stock market gains as simply more non-productive speculative activity.

They're blowing up another bubble. When the next one pops, the outcome will be even worse.

the meaty ugly problems are the same...those "toxic assets" didn't just suddenly become "non-toxic" in the course of a few days or weeks...it just shows the insanity of the markets.

I hate to be pedantic (though my friends would likely snicker to read that), but your wording implied that the "onset" of the Second World War was in 1941. Of course the US was lucky enough to be able to stay out of it until then, but by most reckonings it began with the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939.

Then again, that's maybe a Eurocentric view, and you could make out a case that it began with the Japanese invasion of China in 1931.

Hallelujah on the decepti...er....the accounting rule change. Let's party 'cause apparently now I am rich. Why am I rich all of a sudden? Easy!

See, I sort of inherited (stuff a former wife left after a divorce) a box full of extraordinarily valuable Beanie Babies (Remember those?) that has been sitting in storage for years, mostly because I never got around to digging down and throwing them out. Boy, am I glad now that I held onto 'em.

If there is an inactive market, the market for Beanie Babies is it. So instead of valuing these things for what they are worth...er...at the going rate in an inactive market, I've decided to use my judgment and value them according to what they are really worth when the market for them comes roaring back as surely it will. (It will, won't it?)

Now that I get to adjust my books to reflect the real value of these assets, I'm sure (Sure I tell you!) that some of these big banks and financial institutions will be beating down my door to offer me no-recourse loans against the true value of these assets.

No wonder the stock market is rising. Obviously we are all surrounded by assets with enormous hidden value which, in an active market, are truly worth much more.

Have a box of buddy whips? Well, that market is not all that active these days but you and I both know those really nice buggy whips are worth at least ten times the going rate. Or maybe you have, oh, I dunno...let's say you have your own invention lying around...maybe it's a machine that produces unlimited free energy through the harnessing of perpetual motion. We all know what a bitch it's been trying to find an active market for something like that. Mark that baby up to it's true value and head on down to Citigroup or Government Sachs for a non-recourse loan. If you can't pay it back, then yeah, you'll lose your machine, but the bank will be sitting pretty 'cause they will be able to hold it until its true value becomes apparent in an active market.

We're rich! All of us. RICH! Hallelujah!