The New York Times has the story by Vikas Bajaj about the stock market:

After four mostly miserable weeks, a powerful afternoon rally left traders wondering if it was time to buy again. Shares, the bulls argued, have become too cheap to resist, despite signs of trouble in the economy. Many other investors, however, remained unpersuaded. At about 2 p.m., the market exploded into one of its biggest rallies since World War II, with the Dow Jones industrial average closing up 889.35 points, or 10.9 percent, to 9,065.12. In the last 69 years, the Dow has gained that much on only one other day, and that was two weeks ago, on 13 October.
There was no single catalyst for the surge, and market specialists said investors seemed to be coming around to the idea that stocks were worth buying, given that the Dow had plunged 32 percent since the end of August. By some measures, stocks are cheaper than they have been in decades. Investors also may have also been looking ahead to a Wednesday meeting at the Federal Reserve, at which policy makers are expected to cut interest rates again. “Circle today as one of those days that the fundamental issues trumped panic and fear,” said Robert J. Froehlich, vice chairman and chief investment strategist with DWS Investments. But, he added, he was not ready to declare that stocks would not fall below the closing level on Monday.
The big question on the minds of investors on Wall Street and Main Street, however, remains this: Have stocks fallen enough to reflect the steep declines in profits that are sure to accompany a potentially long global recession?
While some prominent investors like Warren E. Buffett and R. Jeremy Grantham, who had been bearish in the past, have in recent days said that they think stock prices had fallen far enough for them to start buying, others remain unpersuaded.
“For me, the best part about today is that the market went up in the wake of what was some really discouraging economic news,” said Stuart Schweitzer, global markets strategist at J.P. Morgan Private Bank. “When the markets go up on bad news, it holds out hope that the bad news has been digested.” Some analysts were looking ahead to the meeting of the Fed’s rate-setting committee. Investors are betting that the Fed will cut its benchmark fed funds rate to 1 percent, from 1.5 percent.
The rally on Tuesday may partly reflect a growing confidence among investors that the recent moves by the Fed and Treasury Department will prevent more cataclysmic failures in the financial system, like the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, analysts said. “People are feeling much more comfortable that the financial system is stabilizing, and that allows them to focus on fundamental valuations of stocks,” said Todd Steinberg, head of equities and commodity derivatives at BNP Paribas-Americas. “The caveat to that is there is still a lot of economic issues to come.”
It is hard to know whether stock prices reflect a realistic assessment of the coming economic pain. As a group, stock analysts have been slow to reduce their expectations of future corporate profits. (History shows that Wall Street is typically slow to make adjustments to its forecasts at turning points.)
Steven C. Wieting, an economist at Citigroup, said he thought stocks had fallen by more than earnings would through the end of next year, suggesting the market might have fallen too far in recent weeks.

Rico says he hopes people with money start grabbing up these cheap (relatively speaking) stocks again; there are people he cares about who own some and can use the increase in their retirement accounts...