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?

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.

Let’s cover the numbers first.  The Dow rose 112.08 points (or 1.18 percent) to wind up at 9,599.75.  The Nasdaq rose 20.04 points (or 0.98 percent), and ended the trading day at 2,068.15.  As for the S&P 500, it rose 15.25 points (or an impressive 1.49 percent), and found itself at 1,040.46 when all was said and done.

Not bad, right?

Geoffrey Rogow and Peter A. McKay also reported, “[F]ears were alleviated on a better-than-expected report on the service sector and as banks leapt higher on an upgrade of the sector by analysts at Goldman Sachs.”

And, “In particular, traders noted that last week’s decline sets up a similar situation to the period just before the last earnings season, partly suggesting a rally may be in store once corporate reports start trickling in.”

So keep your fingers crossed as we move forward, and hopefully we’ll see stocks continue to gain once the earnings reports actually come out.

What’s more (or technically, less), the $1 billion isn’t all theoretical.  Twitter is supposed to have raised $100 million from a group of investors including the respected mutual fund specialist T. Rowe Price, and it’s that group that agreed to put a value of $1 billion on the company.

So they’re pretty much putting their money with their mouths are, or are at least putting a respectable amount of money somewhere along the air-to-mouth path.

Critics have pointed out that Twitter isn’t pulling in much in the way of revenue aside from funding, of course, and the company hasn’t shared much about its plans for making money.  There are also some charts in existence that appear to show Twitter’s growth rate slowing down.

Still, it looks like we’re either looking at the start of a new communications medium or another bubble.  Big stuff either way.

Analysts seem to feel that Dell was within its rights to target Perot Systems; Dell’s revenue figures have been dropping, and Perot’s angle as a technology services provider should mesh pretty well with its business.

Also, this is the second Ross Perot-founded company to sell within two years, so it’s not like Dell’s gone off the established tracks and gotten snookered by the politician.

The issue is whether Dell paid too much.  $3.9 billion represents a 68 percent premium on the Friday closing price of Perot Systems, and that’s a pretty generous sort of tip under any circumstances.  Given the economy’s sluggish state, perhaps even more so.

A good number of Dell’s current/former shareholders didn’t seem to approve of the deal, anyway, considering that Dell’s shares fell 4.07 percent today and seem to be heading down in after-hours trading, too.

Cecilia Kang spoke to Hal Varian, Google’s chief economist, and Varian saw hope in recent search trends.  Apparently people are searching for terms related to unemployment less, which seems like a good sign.  (Varian said this has actually corresponded to initial jobless claims in the past.)

Also, people are searching for terms related to housing and real estate agents more.  So perhaps all of the government offers (and the real estate market crash itself) have made it possible for more people to get into homes.  That’d be nice.

And it’s important to remember that Varian does work for Google.  So even if he didn’t get into the company’s finances, it’s reasonable to assume that they’re in decent shape or he wouldn’t have been so chatty.

Let’s hope all of these insights and assumptions are correct, anyway.  Varian told Kang, “The die is cast and things seem to be moving in the right direction.  Let’s stay the course.”

This means that Disney’s getting hold of Marvel’s entire fictional universe, which is said to contain more than 5,000 characters.  It’ll inherit all of the movie projects that are in works, too (and for the record, Disney’s CEO, Bob Iger, said that he doesn’t intended to back out of any of them).

The move should help Disney bolster its position with boys, who haven’t exactly latched onto the Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers phenomena.  As for the more grownup comic book fans out there, they shouldn’t worry that their superheroes are about to be ruined, because Pixar continued to do its usual excellent thing even after Disney acquired it.

Anyway, with respect to some financial details: Disney’s stock lost 2.98 percent due to the deal, which isn’t all that bad, while Marvel’s shares gained 25.15 percent.

Also, the cash and stock deal will result in Marvel’s investors receiving $30 for every share of Marvel they own, plus 0.745 shares of Disney stock.

Depending on what shoppers brought to the table in terms of a clunker, they received $4,500, and that’s a significant percentage of some new cars’ price tags, after all.  So one thought is that people who might have otherwise waited until later in 2009 - or even until 2010 - to buy a car moved up their purchase.

If that’s the case, then the demise of cash for clunkers will return us to a period of people not spending a lot money.  Plus, many normal fall and winter car sales will have already occurred.

On the other hand, with the economy improving (or at least not cratering), it’s possible that cash for clunkers will simply have served to get us over a rough spot, and folks will buy cars (and try to keep up with the formerly-clunker-owning-Joneses) as usual.

It should be interesting to see what happens.  The automakers will play a role, too, of course, since it’s up to them to provide vehicles that people want to buy.

Chapter 11 is the flavor of bankruptcy that’s on the table.  Stephanie Clifford reported, “The value of the company will be much lower under the restructuring.  Reader’s Digest’s $2.2 billion in debt will be reduced to $550 million, according to the agreement it has already struck with the majority of the banks.  Ripplewood had bought Reader’s Digest for $2.8 billion in 2007 in a leveraged buyout.”

Which sounds pretty stunning, all in all - those are some huge numbers.  They stand as big signs that things went very wrong.

The good news is that the little Reader’s Digest books should keep getting produced as usual, and all of the Reader’s Digest employees should be able to keep their jobs.

This development isn’t half as bad as it could be, then, and considering how so many print establishments have been crippled, might even be viewed in a positive light.

David Wyss, the chief economist for Standard & Poor’s, told Chris Isidore, “I think they’re going to be a little more optimistic, but not get too carried away by it.  These are central bankers and they tend to be pessimistic by nature.”

Kevin Giddis, a managing director at Morgan Keegan, also said, “You pull stimulus back when you see all four wheels rolling at the same time.  We still have something of a traction problem. For the Fed to declare ‘game over’ is way premature.”

The Fed will probably avoid any potentially embarrassing “Mission Accomplished”-style signs or declarations, then, and won’t do a 180 on all of the little helpful gestures it’s made.

Anyway, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 all stayed roughly level today, losing just between 0.33 percent and 0.40 percent.

The S&P 500 gained 15.15 points (1.53 percent) in order to close at 1,002.63 this afternoon, and since it was early November of 2008 that anybody was last able to use a comma when writing out the S&P 500’s value, this counts as a very momentous occasion.

Matt Townsend wrote, “All 10 industries in the S&P 500 gained, led by commodity producers, as reports on manufacturing and construction spending topped forecasts.  Bank of America Corp., Morgan Stanley, and JPMorgan Chase & Co. climbed after HSBC Holdings Plc reported first-half net income of $3.35 billion as earnings from its securities unit doubled.”

Also - and you know we love the auto industry - “Ford Motor Co. rose to a 15-month high following its first monthly increase in U.S. sales since 2007.”

So hurray for the S&P 500.  The Dow and the Nasdaq did rather well today, too, of course, rising 114.95 points (1.25 percent) and 30.11 points (1.52 percent), respectively.

You can thank lower prices, lower interest rates, and the $8,000 tax credit for that big bump, which signals that nice roofs are now over the heads of a significant number of people.

Also worth thinking about: those roofs aren’t over the heads of people who didn’t pay for them, meaning squatters and the homeless are a little less likely to invade America’s suburbs.  (Hey, we were worried about a second Great Depression for a while, remember?)

Anyway, in more precise terms, the U.S. Department of Commerce said that we’ve reached a seasonally adjusted annual rate of about 384,000 home sales, which sounds nice.

Then here’s a bit more good news: although only by small percentages, the Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 all ended the day up.

First, the Dow.  It rose by 104.21 points (or 1.19 percent of its value) and closed at 8,848.15 today, which is pretty similar to what it was at in early January, more than six months ago.  So there’s half a year’s worth of bad news behind us on at least a temporary basis.

Next, the Nasdaq.  It rose by 22.68 points (or 1.20 percent) to close at 1,909.29.  The last time it was at this level, the calendar corresponded to early October, which makes for another significant win.

Finally, there’s the S&P 500.  It gained 10.75 points (or 1.14 percent) today and closed at 951.13, landing somewhere in between the other two indexes in the sense that that number hasn’t seen since early November.

It’s nice to finally get some good news on a Monday, eh?  Let’s hope this the start of a positive long-term trend, too.

Specifics were a little hard to come by.  Alistair Barr writes, “Discover said the $500 million from the common-stock sale will be used for ‘general corporate purposes.’  That could include pumping capital into Discover Bank, a unit that offers online savings and money-market accounts and certificates of deposit.”

Or Discover might be attempting to buy back stock sold to the Treasury Department, which would be nice for the U.S. of A. as a whole.

But anyway, although Discover’s stock went up 3.55 percent today, it’s now down by 7.62 percent in after hours trading, so it would seem the company’s investors aren’t thrilled with the idea.

One last note: no timeframe for the stock sale has been set (or at least, in keeping with lack of public info, announced).

Madoff showed little emotion during the proceedings, but people in the courtroom - many of whom were victims - cheered and applauded the long sentence.  And although defense attorneys had pushed for a 12-year term of imprisonment, Judge Denny Chin made it clear that he believes the maximum sentence is more fitting.

According to a Bloomberg report, Chin stated, “Mr. Madoff’s crimes were extraordinarily evil.  This was not merely a bloodless financial crime that occurred on paper, but one that took a staggering toll.  The breach of trust here was massive.”

From this point forward, it should be mostly a matter of wrapping up loose ends, including determining in which prison Bernie Madoff will spend the rest of his life, and what will happen to Ruth Madoff.

There’s also the question of what happened to all of the money Madoff received, but it’s possible that a great deal of it will never be tracked down.

Since “header” isn’t too technical of a term, and since it would seem a little rude to make you stop mid-article to check some statistics on another site, here are the exact numbers.  The Dow went down by 200.72 points, or 2.35 percent.  The Nasdaq did quite a bit worse by dropping by 61.28 points, or 3.35 percent.

Finally, the S&P 500 sort of split the different as it decreased by 28.19 points, or 3.06 percent.

If you’re looking for something to blame, talk to the people in charge of the World Bank.  Elizabeth Trotta reports, “[T]he World Bank cut its 2009 global growth forecast.  It now anticipates the world economy will shrink by 2.9%, compared to the 1.9% contraction predicted in March.”

And then, at least on a small scale, we of course saw something of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The Mortgage Bankers Association also cut its forecast for 2009 loan originations by more than 25 percent today.

Here’s the usual summary for you first: the Dow went down by 187.13 points, or 2.13 percent, which counts as its biggest loss since April 20th.  The Nasdaq dropped by 42.42 points, or 2.28 percent.  Finally, the S&P 500 lost 22.49 points, or a not-good 2.38 percent.

As for specific negative factors, well, there weren’t any significant ones.  U.S. Treasuries rose, and Russia’s finance minister actually made some positive comments about the American dollar.  People are just continuing to be tentative, it seems, and cashing out when they can.

James Gaul of Boston Advisors LLC told Jeff Kearns, “We’re starting to see wariness in the markets about where we go from here.  We’re still in a recession and we’re still losing jobs.  The economy’s struggling.”

One sort of bright side is that trading volume was light today, meaning not everyone was in a rush to unload all of their stocks, at least.

The sort of decent news is that this decline isn’t driven by any one particular development; no bank or automaker decided to close branches or plants that weren’t already doomed, for example.  In fact, Chrysler might exit bankruptcy today, which would be a significant step.

Investors may just be acting cautiously after some of the recent gains we’ve seen.  Or doing a bit of cashing out thanks to the same reason.

Anyway, as for some specifics regarding what happened this morning, the Dow is down 109.43 points, or 1.25 percent.  The Nasdaq’s slid 27.23 points, or 1.47 percent.  And the S&P 500 has kept its decline to 11.22 points, or 1.19 percent.

The one significant event on the immediate horizon is Apple’s developer conference.  The company’s short-term success or failure rests on what sort of products are announced this afternoon, and something on the scale of the first iPod or iPhone could help the economy as a whole.

GM got kicked out of the Dow Jones as a result.  It’s hard to imagine many individual investors - or any mutual funds - having much to do with the corporation now.  And here’s some more news that many people will consider bad: the Hummer, Saab, and Saturn brands (along with Pontiac, which we’ve mentioned before) will get sold or killed.

Plus, at least 12 plants are closing, which will put lots of people out of work.

What’s left of GM will mostly be owned by the U.S. government (which will have a 60 percent stake).

The bright side is that GM’s stronger brands may have better luck after they’ve been unchained from the others.  Smart individuals will keep an eye out for rebates and incentives, too, as this may become a great time to pick up a new car for not a lot of money.

This is an interesting fact considering what has been going on lately (and is right over the horizon).  For example: North Korea has been testing nukes again.  And GM’s almost sure to declare bankruptcy in a few days.

Just the same, though, this newfound (or rediscovered) happiness is quite useful in one respect.  The Dow rose by almost 200 hundred points (or 2.37 percent) today, as the Nasdaq gained roughly 60 points (or 3.45 percent).

This is the second monthly confidence gain in a row, too, so we may be officially digging our way out of the recession.

Heck, maybe the GM bankruptcy will even help, if consumers start seeing massive rebates on new trucks and cars.