The idea of three positive Financial Blog stories in a row may seem unlikely or even impossible depending on how accustomed you’ve become to the recession.  This is the real deal, though, as today’s big story is pretty much about general upwards trends in the stock market.

The Dow rose a little more than 96 points today, which put it up a rather neat 0.96 percent.  And that also put it over the 10,000 mark, in case you’re wondering, which is a cause for celebration.

The Nasdaq rose by a little less - 0.91 percent - and didn’t hit any especially significant numbers.  But the S&P 500 temporarily achieved something interesting as it rose above 1,100 at one point today.  (And it didn’t close much lower, finishing at 1,097.91.)

So the season of third quarter earnings reports seems to be going quite snappily.  Industrial equipment maker Eaton saw improvements, which may translate into the American manufacturing machine picking up strength.

Google and Gannett both posted good results, too, which bodes well for the advertising industry.  And the Hasbro toy company made some progress, as well, to sort of put the icing on the no-longer-in-survival-model cake.

Let’s shoot for a fourth positive article next week, eh?

Be happy, people - a consensus is building that the worst is about behind us.  A roundup of some economic data and experts’ opinions makes it hard not to reach the conclusion that the recession is, in fact, over.

Here’s one happy little detail: the Dow is honing in on 10,000 again, having closed up about 20 points at 9,885.80 this afternoon.  What’s more, as we noted last week, it’s doing this even as it’s almost time for companies’ third quarter reports, which shows a certain level of optimism.

Then there’s a survey of 44 professional forecasters that the National Association for Business Economics put out to consider.  Reuters reports, “About two-thirds of respondents believed house prices will reach a bottom this year.”

Finally, the key discovery of the survey is as follows: “80 percent of the respondents believed the economy was growing again after four straight quarters of declines.”

So hopefully this recovery will continue as the experts predicted.  While we’re thankful that things never slid into depression territory, it’d still be great to put this recession behind us.