Is the rally real? That was the question I have been asked for days. Yes, it's real.

1. Earnings are fair, and likely bottoming.

2. Stock valuations are not unreasonable at roughly 13.5x earnings in the S&P 500.

3. The global economy, China in particular, is improving, and the risk of a disintegration of the euro is receding, both of which argue for a multiple expansion.

4. The stock rally has been broad-based.

We are now in our third week of inflows into stock mutual funds. In the last three weeks, $14.9 billion has gone into equity mutual funds, the highest three-week move since January 2001, according to Lipper. That's pretty impressive volume.

Some have asked me if that is a sign of a market top, because, as we all know, mutual fund investors are dumb slobs that only invest when the market is at a top. Buy high, sell low. Hrumpf.

Please. Three weeks of inflows into stock mutual funds do not constitute a top.

Been in San Francisco visiting family and friends in the last week and it's hard not to notice the city's renaissance, as dot-commers who formerly were living in Silicon Valley have pushed into and gentrified the Mission District south of Market Street, formerly the home of much of the city's homeless and marginal types.

It's still block by block, but the entire district is now populated with uber-hip coffee houses that play vinyl records, expensive apartments, and restaurants with unpronounceable beer names and $18 pizzas.

It's hard, too, not to notice all the bullish signs for the markets in the last few days:

Earnings: Strength in big multinationals.

Finally. We are getting past financials and into the heart of earnings season, to the companies I love: industrial multinationals.

Four of them reported this morning: General Electric, Johnson Controls, Parket Hannifin, and Rockwell Collins.

All four beat on top line and bottom line.

If you are trying to make sense of Bank of America'searnings report ... good luck. The press release is 38 pages. I kid you not, 38 pages! And that's just the press release. The official document — the 10-Q — ran to 265 pages for the last quarter's results. Still waiting for the current quarter 10-Q to get posted, but it will certainly be even bigger.

All that — 265 pages — to find out that there is not a lot BofA can do can do in a low rate environment where margins are pressured. You can slowly put legacy issues behind you, and you can keep downsizing. That's what it is doing. Cutting salaries and firing people. How many prople? Just over 14,600 people were let go last year of the 267,000 they employ. It's right there, on page 5 of the press release.

While I'm on the subject of earnings, the lack so far of any inspiring, or even directional, guidance is a big problem.

"Germany looks to repatriate gold." There was a headline that stirred debate this morning.

Germany is repatriating some of its gold supply held in the U.S. and France and returning it to Germany. Is it a sign that the Bundesbank no longer trusts other central banks? That the Bundesbank is unhappy with the fiscal irresponsibility of Washington?

I doubt that. This has little to do with distrust among central banks. Germany put gold in the U.S. during the cold war because of fear of the Soviet invasion. That has long since gone away. It makes sense to bring some of it back.

Three IPOs this week are Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs) — part of a long string of MLPs that have gone public recently — at least seven since September, according to IPOFinancial.com.

Why the excitement? MLPs are backed by physical assets, usually oil and gas pipelines, that generate revenue under long-term contracts.

MLPs are hot for two reasons: 1) like REITs, MLPs are required to pass on 90 percent of income to investors, which means yields are attractive; and 2) when rates are low (as they are now), MLPs are able to keep growing because they use borrowed money to expand operations.

Dow Transports poised to close at an historic high. This is, at first glance, a play on airlines.

Why the airlines? Because they have turned their businesses around: 1) they have paid down debt, 2) mergers have increased, with more to come, 3) they have limited capacity, and 4) raised prices.

But the group to keep an eye on is railroads. They have a bigger market capitalization than airlines and, most notably, underperformed the S&P 500 last year.

Railroads have now become relative value plays.

In addition, railroads are plays on the U.S. economy in 2013...on cars, agriculture, and coal, so any downturn in outlook will affect their recent rally.

Air freight: improving Asian freight data will help companies like Federal Express (FDX) and Expeditors International (EXPD).

Dell. I can imagine how Michael Dell must be feeling these days: He thinks the sentiment that the PC business is dying is too pessimistic, and believes that the company is slowly making a transition to the more profitable enterprise space. He also believes no one will give him the time to make the transition.

I share his pain. I share his pain. The thinking behind going private is pretty simple: It will be less painful, and less embarrassing, to sell off pieces of the company while it is private.

But the mere fact that the stock price is down and financing is cheap is not a sufficient reason to take the company private.

(Read More: Dell Buyout Has '50-50' Chance: Wilbur Ross)

How hot are Master Limited Partnerships (MLPs)? Very hot.

MLPs are backed by physical assets that generate revenue under long-term contracts. Their main attraction: they pay out a juicy yield to investors.

No less than three are pricing this week, including USA Compression Partners (USAC), which prices tonight for trading tomorrow. It provides natural gas compression services and provides a roughly eight percent yield.

Huh? MLPs are traditionally gas and oil pipeline companies. But MLPs are so popular now that they are branching off into new areas.

The other two MLPs pricing this week: SunCoke Energy Partners (SXCP), which owns coke-making facilities to aid in steel production (8.25 percent yield) and CVR Refining (CVRR), which owns petroleum refining operations in Kansas and Oklahoma (18.8 percent yield!).

See what I mean? It's all part of the "reach for yield" story. Here's another example of how hot they are: tomorrow Global X Funds will launch the first ETF for the small-cap segment of MLPs. Who needs a "small-cap MLP ETF?"

"As the energy infrastructure in North America continues to expand, smaller capitalization MLPs often control increasingly important energy assets and are active in the exploration, transportation and storage of domestic energy resources," says Global X in a release.

"Because many of these companies are not included in major MLP indices, in many cases they have not experienced the same price growth as their larger counterparts and may offer value at current levels."