March 12, '09. What a Day.

February retail sales were better than expected.

Bank of America's CEO, Ken Lewis, says business is profitable again.

GM says they don't need a previously requested $2 billion government loan.

Standard & Poor's says GE's credit is in better shape than we thought.

Congress and the SEC are finally going to review the mark-to-market rule, which arguably largely responsible for the credit market freeze.

And Bernie Madoff finally goes to jail.

Any one of these headlines would've caused the markets to rise, but we got them all at once. Three consecutive days of market gains is tough to get, but we got it. In the last three days, the Dow Jones roared ahead by 623 points to close at 7170 today. That's a 9.5% gain in your stock portfolio in under a week.