The bears came out this week and didn't spook everyone off. When the market was too weak, there were buyers and as long as there are buyers on weakness we're OK.

When we got to a certain point of weakness there were buyers and that's been one of the characteristics of the market recently ? the re-emergence of the 'buy on dips' crowd. It's a more disciplined crowd but they are certainly nibbling at excessive weakness and that's a good undertone.

A lot of [financial companies] report this week. This might be some speculation that we'll see some visibility from the group.

The key word coming into the week was fear and that fear didn't turn to panic so the key word going out of the week is hope.

This week has been a big victory for stocks. We weathered the continuous stream of bad news a lot better and we weren't shocked when companies warned for the third quarter. Investors are starting to forget about the past and focus on the future.

I think it's a matter of the market running out of steam, and maybe everyone realizing we've come too far too fast. The stocks have moved ahead of the fundamentals.