Securities

Did they cancel Great Depression II? So soon? That's one message investors might choose to take away from the sharp rebound in stock markets worldwide over the last three weeks. The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index has pared its year-to-date loss from a stunning 25% as of March 9 to just under 10% at Friday's close. The global economy still is in miserable shape after the dive in consumer and business spending since mid-2008.

By the time Rick Wagoner was named chief executive of General Motors Corp. in June 2000, the stock market seemed to know that the company's fortunes had peaked. GM's shares reached their all-time high of $93.63 in April 2000. By the end of June of that year the price had tumbled to $58.06. The stock has been in decline for most of this decade, even in the bull-market years of 2004, 2005 and 2007. GM's sales were $185 billion in 2000 and reached a record $206 billion in 2006.

An intense week of earnings reports will tell whether Wall Street can extend its rally to a seventh week -- or see its gains pop like a bubble. With each week that the stock market lifts itself from the 12-year lows seen in early March, investors grow at turns hopeful and nervous. The gains are welcome after torrential selling in February, but too much too soon could fan worries that a rebound will quickly go into reverse.

Nine weeks ago, the stock market couldn't find a single thing to be hopeful about. Now, seemingly nothing can upset it. Chrysler in bankruptcy? No surprise there. Possible global flu pandemic? The authorities will handle it. The economy shrank at a 6.1% annual rate last quarter? Ancient history! Blue-chip stock indexes this week rose for the seventh week of the last eight, with the Dow Jones industrial average adding 44.29 points, or 0.5%, to 8,212.41 on Friday. The Dow is up 25.

Thursday wasn't a total loss for Bank of America Corp. Chief Executive Kenneth Lewis. He got pummeled on Capitol Hill, but the company's stock enjoyed its biggest rally in nearly a month thanks to some bullish words from Wall Street. Bank of America shares jumped 99 cents, or 8.3%, to $12.97 after research firm Keefe Bruyette & Woods raised its rating on the stock to outperform, or buy, from hold.

California Treasurer Bill Lockyer will have to borrow $10.5 billion next month. That's no small chunk of change. But the way it looks now, many investors will be lining up to hand him their money. Despite the state's global reputation for fiscal mismanagement, and the lowest credit rating in the Union, California is in the right place at the right time to put out its hat. The confluence of events can be summarized like so: Cash-needy state meets needy cash. For the last five months, investors have grown increasingly confident that the U.S. economy no longer faces collapse.

With the end of summer drawing near, investors find themselves in far better shape than they probably dared to imagine just a few months ago. So much better, in fact, that many people have a nagging suspicion this is all some kind of Wall Street mirage that could vanish in no time. Putting those understandable fears aside for a moment, let's count up just how much repair has been done to portfolios battered by the markets' crash of last fall and winter. Most major U.S. stock indexes have rebounded more than 50% from their lows in March, a feat few market pros figured was achievable in such a short span.

Plans by Dole Food Co. to sell shares to the public were triggered by a cash crunch for the nation's largest fresh produce business and its owner, billionaire David Murdock. A review of Securities and Exchange Commission documents filed by the company and public statements by the 86-year-old Murdock reveal a combination of interlinked loans and heavy spending that threaten the heavily leveraged Dole's solvency. "Our substantial indebtedness could adversely affect our operations, including our ability to perform under our debt obligations, and we may incur significant additional indebtedness," Westlake Village-based Dole said in an Aug. 14 regulatory filing.

Quick -- you have one minute to answer this question: If you had to make a decision today to reallocate money in your 401(k) plan or other investment account, would you sell stocks to buy bonds or sell bonds to buy stocks? This isn't just an academic exercise, of course. With the dramatic resurgence of financial markets since March, millions of investors are staring at their portfolios with a mix of joy and apprehension. People who stayed put in stocks and bonds have recouped a huge chunk of what was lost in the September-to-March crash.

FirstFed Financial Corp., battered by losses on its portfolio of risky mortgages, is pursuing a plan to sell stock to the public in a last-ditch bid to avert a government takeover of the Los Angeles-based savings and loan operator. The proposed stock offering by the parent of First Federal Bank of California comes as bottom-fishing investors, betting the economy is improving, are showing interest in troubled lenders. But few banks have endured a year as bad as that suffered by FirstFed, the second-largest California-based thrift.