The market has been indiscriminate in this rally, pushing up 487 out of 500 S&P stocks. This level of irrationality is ending, and certain segments are going to take a hit.

Once this happens, the broad-based support for the S&P 500 will erode brick by brick.

Next: Sign #8: Light volume

We've seen a large percentage of companies reporting better-than-expected earnings. However, the earnings reports were not always compared to last year.

There is yet another factor, actually the most important factor that generates profits, and that key factor is sales. Without sales, the bottom line (net profit) remains stagnant.

Companies have slashed payrolls and expenses and that increased the bottom line for a time. However after all of this is over, the bottom line doesn't improve until sales improve.

The Dow is set to end another week with a close above 8,000. In fact, the U.S. stock market is at a crossroad of sorts.

Right now, Dow 8,000 is not an issue: 5 consecutive weekly closes and roughly 400 points above 8,000 suggest that battle has been won by bulls.

Still, the bears will argue that the Dow is not that far above the psychologically-important 8,000 level and that this market is more than capable of wiping out that cushion in two sessions. Further, the bears also argue that while the Dow has closed above 8,000 for about a month, it hasn't been able to both make and sustain new highs above 8,600, then 8,800 and 9,000 etc.

Western Digital (NYSE: WDC - option chain) shares are rising today after Standard & Poor's announced yesterday that WDC will be added to the S&P 500 to replace Embarq (NYSE: EQ), which is being acquired by CenturyTel Inc. (NYSE: CTL). When this happens, mutual funds and other services that track the S&P 500 will have to buy WDC, which usually gives the stock a boost higher or at least a floor. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on WDC.

WDC opened this morning at $24.95. So far today the stock has hit a low of $24.35 and a high of $25.25. As of 11:30, WDC is trading at $24.68 up 0.32 (1.3%). The chart for WDC looks bearish and S&P gives WDC a negative 2 STARS (out of 5) sell ranking.

Alcoa Inc. (AA) must have drawn the short straw to be the economic canary in the coal mine decades ago, but for many investors the aluminum maker's earnings are seen as a harbinger of things to come. Judging from Wall Street estimates, expectations are so low, they are almost laughable.

Analysts expect the Dow component to lose 56 cents per share on revenue of $4.08 billion compared with $303 million, or 37 cents, a year earlier on revenue of $7.38 billion, according to estimates by Thomson Reuters. The Pittsburgh-based company reported its first loss in six years in January. Its shares are down about 30 percent this year, even with the recent surge in the stock market.

If you still hold stocks, should you use the recent plunge to buy? Should you hold? or Should you just get out of stocks altogether? The answer depends on how soon you need your money and your outlook for stock prices. The first question is easier to answer than the second one -- which is virtually impossible to get right. As I posted last October, if you need your money in the next six years, it probably makes sense to sell.

How bad was January 2009? After falling 38.5% in 2009, the S&P 500 lost another 8.6% of its value last month. And the January barometer effect -- the idea that as goes January, so goes the year -- has a pretty good track record. In 60 of the last 80 years, the S&P 500's performance in January has reflected the index's annual result. For example, in January 2008, the S&P 500 fell 6%. And this January was the worst ever for the market. So maybe 2009 will be even worse than 2008.

Since the S&P 500 hit an 11 year low of on November 20th, it's risen 24%. Does this have anything to do with President-elect Barack Obama? I have absolutely no idea -- but it could. That was the week when Obama cut back on talking about how there was only one President at a time and began to assemble and announce his economic team.

This was also the time I began to notice that some stocks in my newsletter started to go up. And yet the drumbeat of bad economic news continues -- with the latest being the worst decline in global manufacturing activity in 60 years. The big question for investors is whether the 24% rise in the S&P 500 is the end of a bear market rally or the beginning of a bigger one.

The only rationale I can think of for a rise in stocks is that investors may have concluded that the stimulus plan -- which has been rumored to be potentially $1 trillion -- could boost specific stocks in 2009 as that money begins to create jobs for companies that build roads, bridges, and broadband networks across the U.S. Alternatively, today's rally could reflect investors' realization that with money market and bank deposit rates near zero -- the only way to put all that cash to work is to move into stocks.

Are you participating in this Obama rally? Or do you think it's a head fake? How will you decide it's time to move your cash off the sidelines?

Peter Cohan is president of Peter S. Cohan & Associates. He also teaches management at Babson College and edits The Cohan Letter.

The Institute for Supply Management announced that its index for December fell to 32.4, down from 36.2 in November. It was the lowest level for the index in 28 years. The markets seemed almost happy about the news, posting gains across all major indexes.

A number of retailers also moved up, lead by Macy's, Inc. (NYSE: M) which gained well over 5%. The fact that holiday sales in the industry were awful did not seem to matter. Auto stocks also had a perverse reaction to the news that December domestic sales are expected to be off 30% or more. General Motors Corporation (NYSE: GM) moved up up almost 15%.

Among the 25 most actively traded issues on U.S. markets, every one was up except the ETF that shorts the S&P 500.

The rally was remarkably broad and volume was solid for what is usually a slow day. If this is what the New Year looks like, welcome.

The unofficial closing numbers:

Dow: 9,034.69 +258.30 (2.94%)
S&P 500: 931.75 +28.50 (3.16%)
Nasdaq : 1,632.21 +55.18 (3.50%)

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Mutual funds lost $320 billion to redemptions last year. It was, by most measures, a "flight to safety." Equity funds, in particular, were hit hard by the falling stock market.

According to the FT, "The data include both retail and institutional investors. The total outflow of $320bn does not include money market funds."

The flight out is fine, but what about the flight in? Some analysts see 2009 as a "rebound" year, especially if government stimulus packages work. If that is true, stocks could begin to move up sharply as the Obama and TARP plans start to bear fruit, perhaps as early as the second quarter.

Other researchers believe that stocks are cheap. The P/E ratio for the S&P 500 is at a multiyear low. It would not take much of an earnings recovery to push that up.

Investors may have saved themselves from having their investments down 30% instead of 40% by moving money into Treasuries. But, the Dow has been up as much as 30% in strong years. Those who stay on the sideline risk a chance to get their money back.

Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.

Iron Mountain (NYSE: IRM - option chain) shares have moved higher today after the stock was added to the Standard & Poor's S&P 500 index.

IRM is replacing UST Inc. (NYSE: UST), which was bought out by Altria Group (NYSE: MO). This usually causes a surge in stock value as all the ETFs that track the S&P 500 now have to rush to add IRM positions. If you think that the stock won't fall by too much in the coming months, then now could be a good time to look at a bullish hedged trade on IRM.

IRM opened this morning at $21.45. As of this writing, the stock has hit a low of $21.40 and a high of $37.24. As of 12:45, IRM is trading at $22.99, up $3.16 (15.9%). The chart for IRM looks neutral and S&P gives IRM a 3 STARS (out of 5) hold ranking.

For a bullish hedged play on this stock, I would consider an April bull-put credit spread below the $15 range. A bull-put credit spread is an options position that combines the purchase and sale of put options to hedge risk in case the stock doesn't do what you think but still leverage nice returns. For this particular trade, we will make an 8.7% return in just four months as long as IRM is above $15 at April expiration. Iron Mountain would have to fall by more than 34% before we would start to lose money.

IRM hasn't been below $16 at all in the past year and has shown support around $19.50 recently.

Brent Archer is an options analyst and writer at Investors Observer. At publication time, Brent neither owns nor controls positions in IRM.

This post is part of a series where personal finance expert Dan Solin looks at money secrets that help the rich stay rich. See them all.

All information about listed companies is public. It is widely and instantly disseminated. This information is studied by millions of investors, who establish the price of a given stock based on this data.

Many of those looking at this data are professional analysts. They are well trained in finance and have access to powerful computer programs that assist them in crunching the numbers.

There is one piece of information they don't know: tomorrow's news.

Future events move stock prices. The market has already discounted for current news.

Because no one knows tomorrow's news, many "sure bets" turn out to be losers. Fannie Mae, Lehman, and Bear Stearns are recent examples. Past failures of top-rated stocks include Worldcom, Enron, Bethlehem Steel and Polaroid. In fact, of the 500 companies that made up the S&P 500 in 1957, only 74 of them were in the index in 1997.

Here is the real kicker: Only twelve of those companies outperformed the S&P 500 index in the period from 1957-1998.

If you are a stock trader you might have made money using Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) as an instrument of the trade. If you were someone jumping on the band wagon at the wrong time, say GOOG at $750 -- I feel your pain.

But if you are a traditionalist and bought the stock early and simply held on, the interesting thing is you would not have done any better than if you had bought a Standard and Poors 500 index fund.

The chart below illustrates that buying either Google or the S&P three years ago would have resulted in nearly the same loss. Although their paths cross a dozen times, they end in the same place.

With the 4th of July approaching, it's always a good time to get a bit of perspective and take a look at what may happen in the second half of the year. As with predictions they generally tend to never come true, but here are 3 market predictions for the 2nd half of the year.

1- Crude oil will trade down under $100/barrel. As global growth continues to slow, especially in overheated emerging markets, some of the the speculative froth will leave the market and the price will start heading down to a point more in line with fundamentals.

2- The US Dollar will rally against the Euro, and reach a level of 1.42 by the end of December, down from the 1.58 current levels. With European growth expected to potentially contract by more than 1% in the coming quarters, and the US staying out of recession, the market will re-focus on growth differentials in the for-ex markets, providing some much needed strength for the greenback.

The S&P 500 closed today at 1530.23, a new all-time closing high. The S&P 500 had been flirting with a new high these past 10 days, but now it is done and official. So, what does all this signify? Where do we go from here?

The United States stock markets have proven to be resilient and strong so far in 2007. The first quarter saw general corporate earnings to be quite healthy and, even more important, sustainable for the remainder of the year. The market was knocked -- before it even opened -- this morning by the news out of China. The government of China, trying to cool off the wild ride its market has provided this year, introduced a higher transaction tax. The government raised the rate from 0.1% to 0.3%. The Chinese market took a hit, but appears ready to plow right back through the pre-tax announcement.

The US market, and the S&P 500 specifically, is not generally viewed as "expensive." With the S&P 500 trading at 16 times 2007 expected earnings, the consensus is the market is fairly priced -- not over-priced. Coupled with strong corporate earnings experienced the first quarter, investors are feeling and showing confidence in the US economy. After all the stock market is the voice of near term confidence -- or lack of it.

The private equity world is keeping investors interest at a peak. The game of "who is next " on the acquisition block is keeping stocks afloat, and almost any company under $50 billion in market capitalization could be "in play." The share buyback programs are actively in place with almost $150 billion committed during this second quarter. It's a strong vote of confidence by American corporations in the value and merits of their own stocks.

So, we see strong corporate earnings flow, private equity activity at fever pitch, active share buy-backs, net in-flows into equity mutual funds and relatively low interest rates ... the S&P 500 is reflecting all of these positive factors.

Georges Yared is the CIO of Yared Investment Research. For more growth ideas please visit the web site

I'm looking at my screen and I rub my eyes. Could it be? On the left-hand column I read a headline, "Slowing Economy Spurs Bond Rally." Over there in the side bar is the cute box that shows the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500. The chart spikes peppily. "11610.55" is the bright number next to DJIA. "1330.60" reads the S&P 500 -- its five-year high. [Update: at market close, the S&P 500 had hit a brand-new five-year high of 1336.34, with the DJIA at its 2006 high and second-highest close ever, 16669.39.] The world is full of bright, happy green that seems to belie the sad economic data, the slow in advertising, the doom for American autos.

Could it be true?

It seems as if it is. One one side we have the DJIA and the S&P 500. The Dow's all-time high is 11,750 (140 90-ish points away), while the all-time closing high is only 11,722 (that's 111.45 52.61 points away from right now, if you're counting along with me). The S&P is raring to go, as well, creeping ever so slowly up towards its all-time high of 1,552 (although it's still 222 215 points away, 16.6% 16.1%). Strikingly, the current level is higher than the index has been for five-and-a-half years.

And yet, still, economy slumps, slows, dips, weakens. Why are consumers so confident, why are investors eagerly buying up stocks, while the rest of the indicators seem to warn them away? I've searched my brain for a creative answer, and can't discover one. What do you think?