The pithiest answer to the question ‘Why is the market up?’ is often used to hide the fact that the person being asked does not really understand the price action at all. That there are more buyers than sellers is frequently all one needs to know. At the beginning of the year it was uncertain if the support to the financial system from cheap money, abundant central bank liquidity and fiscal easing would overcome the deflationary forces that started with credit losses in banks and accelerated with near-total collapse of the system last autumn. Sentiment turned, after a chilly January and February, on hopes that financial Armageddon had...
