Without a hint of irony, the Associated Press reported that "Trailing by seven runs with seven outs left in their season, the Red Sox pulled off the biggest postseason rally since 1929. Boston staved off elimination in the AL championship series with an 8-7 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays on Thursday night when J.D. Drew singled home the winning run with two outs in the ninth."

That's right: in the midst of a market meltdown, the Red Sox pulled off the greatest comeback in playoff history since 1929, and they did it on October 16th, just 13 days before the anniversary of Black Tuesday. Coincidence? Who knows?

But given that there are a lot of people making predictions about the future of the market -- and none of them really know what they're talking about -- I'm proposing a new method. If the Red Sox come back to win the next two games and shock the Tampa Bay Rays out of their first ALCS title, then the comeback is real -- and the markets have bottomed.

But if the Red Sox break their fans hearts by losing after such a glorious comeback, then we'll have to chalk the market's modest gains of the past week up to a bear rally -- sucking in optimists only to destroy still more wealth.

Have you been worried about whether to sell your stocks now? Freaked out about the upcoming recession all the talking heads on TV are worried about? Did Tuesday's bill selloff confirm all your deepest fears? Several times on BloggingStocks.com we've noted that selling or buying based on emotion usually leads to worse results, and at the end of the day today that truism was reinforced as the market surged back to make up for Tuesday's losses.

With the confidence of a federal rate cut probably speaking to some investors, and with the usual mechanics of supply and demand and market volatility coming into play, the market jumped.

The Dow was up 2.5%, the S&P 500 up 2.1%. Even the NASDAQ, with its heavy complement of tech companies who reported low earnings, bumped itself up 1%.

Although market volatility hasn't been seen like this in some five years, the idea that this week will see only a falling market has now been busted. But the question is, will the surge continue, or just peter out?