STOCK MARKET Major indexes recover nicely, but will it last?

Things can go sour in a hurry, one analyst said.
NEW YORK (AP) -- The Nasdaq composite index reached a milestone in its recovery from the bear market this past week, popping above the 2,000 level before falling back again. And the Dow Jones industrials trekked toward a benchmark of their own, 10,000.
Investors are taking their time as they send stocks to levels not seen since the first half of 2002, and that might be the most encouraging aspect of the market's recovery, analysts say. The deliberate pace of Wall Street's rise shows the market is being driven by fundamentals rather than sentiment, said Richard E. Cripps, chief market strategist for Legg Mason of Baltimore.
"This is a very healthy market, unambiguously," Cripps said. "In a market like this, that is showing some degree of soberness, you know you're not buying into hyped expectations."
The big question
The real question, Cripps said, is how much higher investors will push the market over the next several quarters, as expectations rise but year-over-year comparisons become less favorable.
It's already hard to impress investors. The Labor Department announced Friday that the nation's unemployment rate slipped to 5.9 percent in November, the lowest level in eight months. But stocks fell as investors focused on the negative aspect of the report, which found U.S. companies added only 57,000 jobs in November, far fewer than the 150,000 jobs analysts expected.
With economic data and earnings news generally good, there's little doubt the market can continue to move gradually higher, said Richard A. Dickson, senior market strategist at Lowry's Research Reports in Palm Beach, Fla. But it remains vulnerable to a plethora of external factors, such as the price of oil, the strength of the dollar and global terrorism concerns.
"There's a lot of things that are positive going on, but there's a lot out there that could change it in a hurry," Dickson said. "This is not the Goldilocks economy that we saw five years ago."
Technology stocks
But Dickson also expressed concern about the swelling demand for small-cap technology stocks, which have led the rally since March. With so much uncertainty, he said, it's not clear how much longer this group can hold its momentum.
"The thing that amazes me most is that the same kinds of stocks that led the market in '98 and '99 seem to be leading the market again," Dickson said. "It's like, have investors learned nothing at all? How many times do they have to go out and get slaughtered? I don't understand why they are heading toward this same precipice."