The U.S. stock market had its best September since 1939, as reported in the Financial Times. The S&P index gained 8.8%.

If we look around we'll find analysts on both sides of the market now. The market is at a crossroads, sitting right at resistance levels. If we break through this resistance, we could see it go higher.

The bulls are saying that this is the biggest opportunity in decades. The bears are in there selling, looking for a correction. The short index, as a percent of total shares, stands at for the S&P hit 4.61%, the highest since November 2009.

The Street.com's Jim Cramer says that they should recognize that what's more important than being a bear is being right.

Ah, the lot of the bear is a beautiful lot -- never wrong, always having fun at the bullish optimists, never going down for defeat. For them, every day is a day when the St. Louis Cardinals will face the Boston Red Sox in the World Series, even after they have been eliminated.

Cases in point: two reports yesterday on Texas Instruments (NYSE: TXN) (Cramer's Take) from the Joy Luck Bear Club, Christopher Danely from JPMorgan and Alex Gauna from JMP Securities. Both of these gentlemen have fought the good but totally wrong fight against Texas Instruments. After what was a monumentally good quarter for the company, Gauna, who has Texas Instruments as an "underperform," raised his price target dramatically from $16 to $18. That would be totally in keeping with the direction of the earnings (way up), except that the stock's at $23.50.

In the past week or so, a number of highly-respected investors -- including long-time bears -- have lined up to pronounce the recent stock market rally the real deal.

Now former Morgan Stanley Chief Global Strategist Barton Biggs, who currently manages hedge fund Traxis Partners -- appeared on CNBC's Fast Money to say that he too thinks the current rally will develop into a long-term bull run.

It looks like tomorrow could very well become yet another "hang on to your hat Friday" or another edition of "As The U.S. Economy Turns."

Still, hopefully it won't become another 'down goes the Dow' day with an extended visit from our old friend, you guessed it, Dow 8,000. But analysts and economists haven't ruled the latter out.

The reason? The January 2009 jobs report, to be released by the U.S. Labor Department at 8:30 a.m. EST.

Following nearly a week in which a Fortune 500 company announced a major downsizing daily, and on the heels of December 2008's loss of 524,000 jobs, most professionals in economics and public policy circles are preparing for another sobering jobs report.

Earlier this month, the Dow made two runs at 9,000 before moving back toward the 8,500 range, which brings Dow 8,000 back in to focus.

For those investors who may not follow indices closely, the 8,000 level has psychological but not technical support, the latter of which measures such things as the number of investors who are buying and selling, whether investors are committing new money to the market, and so on.

The issue: U.S. economy's health

Even so, right now a battle is taking place between the bulls and the bears: the bears argue the worst economic news stemming from the financial crisis is yet to come; the bulls, that the worst news is behind us and that government stimulus, fiscal and monetary, will get the economy moving again.

The Dow Wednesday closed below 8,419. If the bears can keep the Dow below 8,000 then push it through 7,800, then 7,600, it will not be a pleasant time for investors.

Further, with most trading desks half-staffed during the last two weeks of the year, nothing definitive regarding the market's direction is likely to occur before the new year. Also, institutions may continue to sit on their hands in early January 2009, preferring to await the Obama Administration's inauguration and the announcement of the fiscal stimulus package's exact size, now believed to be approaching $800 billion over two years.

Even so, let's do a condensed, cross-methodology analysis to see if we can arrive at an informed investment analysis regarding where the Dow is headed, near-term.

Technical Indicators: Bearish.
Fundamental Indicators: Bearish.

Once again, Dow 8,000 has come back into focus.

For those investors who may not follow indices closely, the 8,000 level has a psychological but not technical support, the latter of which measures such things as the number of investors who are buying / selling, whether investors are committing more money to the market etc.

Even so, right now, a battle is taking place between the bulls and the bears: the bears argue the worst economic news stemming from the financial crisis is yet to come; the bulls argue that the worst news is behind us, and that government stimulus, fiscal and monetary, will get the U.S. economy moving again.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average Wednesday closed below 8,000 at 7,997. If the bears can keep the Dow below 8,000 and then push it through 7,800, then 7,600, it will not be a pleasant time for investors.

Let's do a condensed, cross-methodology analysis to see if we can arrive at an informed investment decision / conclusion regarding where the Dow is headed, near-term.

Talk to the stock market's bulls and they argue the Dow is forming a bottom at / near 8,000.

Talk to the bears and they say you're dreaming, if you think the Dow has bottomed at 8,000.

What's the typical investor to do?

Let's do a condensed, cross-methodology analysis to see if we can arrive at an informed investment decision / conclusion.

Technical Indicators: Bearish.
Fundamental Indicators: Bearish.
Monetary Policy: Officials are doing everything they can to stimulate growth. Bullish.
Fiscal Policy: More fiscal stimulus should be on the way, in both the U.S. and aboard. Bullish.

Credit Markets: Recovering, but still strained, with still too much interbank distrust / fear. Bearish.

Geopolitical Risk: On average, it's about the same as it has been during the past 3-5 years. Neutral.

Conclusion: The view from here argues that the outlook for U.S. stocks / stock market is bearish at least for the next six months, and most likely for much of 2009. Further, if Dow 8,000 doesn't hold, the market could fall much more, particularly after 2009 earnings estimates are revised downward, as they are expected to be.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer snow's not good for stocks, particularly coupled with other disturbing news.

When I was long and it snowed, I would always be worried: Would the bulls stay home? Would they defend their turf?

And when the snow happened on Friday I just figured my portfolio would be a free fire zone: What bull comes to work on a snowday? They take off. The rigor, the toughness, the never miss guys, they are all bears!

I actually thought like that. So, when I woke up and saw the snow I figured, oh yeah, this will be such an easy market to push down, there is so little going for it.

And that's the real issue, isn't it? Other than rate cut possibilities and some good numbers from companies that do a lot of business overseas, this market has nothing going for it.

Only with something as arcane and mysterious as Federal Reserve interest rate policy does it make perfect sense that a governmental body could decide to make no changes and the stock market would mysteriously surge.

That's just what happened today when the Fed decided to leave interest rates at 5.25% -- for the fifth straight month – and investors rejoiced. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped more than 100 points following the Fed's announcement, reaching a new intraday high.

What explains the excitement? As my BloggingStocks colleague Jon Ogg explained, many investors were concerned the Fed might warn today that it saw that inflation was a risk and signal that it could raise rates in the future. Or, as Ogg put it it in an instant message, "some were worried they would be inflation hawks and indicate their fear of rising prices because of decent economic data."