Forget the absolute numbers, you have to correct for inflation, i.e. very weak dollar, for the numbers to have any meaning. On that basis we are still quite away from the all-time high. I'm with LT701 on this one. In reality, earnings have not been very good, but he market does not care. Do not buy into the analyst nonsense of revising downward so that expectations can be met or exceeded. That's just more of the usual analyst crap. Morningstar, a fairly conservative and independent outfit has the current market as close to fairly valued. The only thing unusual here is the long string of up days without pulling back to the 20 ma hourly, but we did get back close to the 20 the other day. The great advantage of day trading is being flat at the end of the day. Then it really does not matter what the market does, though i agree with those who have said that they would like to see a little more volatility as it has been difficult trading on a number of days. But one can always prune the roses when the market refuses to cooperate. You don't have to trade. It is rather pointless to try and understand the why of the market, and in the final analysis the why does not matter. Next Wednesday may be interesting.