I would disagree with you. I think it is more likely that we will go up to 9,000 rather than 7,000.

The stock market tends to be a leading indicator of the direction of the economy. From my own understanding, the market improves before the economy does. So even if economic indicators are still in the toilet, (which many are), investors would have already expected that. In the past year, we have seen a number of indicators fall through the floor. Unemployment, sales, revenue, etc have all dropped quite a bit, and some of them are still going down. However, the SPEED at which they are going down has slowed. That leads me to believe that we are approaching the bottom, and will begin to improve within 6 months or so.

We have already seen signs of improvement. Banks, which helped start the collapse, have come out with profitable quarters. Goldman Sachs just released their Q1 financial report, which showed a significant improvement over last year. I believe that investors have weighed this data and are expecting that the economy will improve soon. I also think that's why the market has had upward movement recently, and that trend should continue.

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