What's Moving The Market Up

Several pieces of good news are helping stocks today.

First, Merrill Lynchhas put a price on CDOs and sold them. Yes, it's $0.22 on the dollar, but at least it is a price, and that is what the Street is looking for.

Second, the Conference Board consumer confidence index was up, particularly the futures expectation component was up, off the record lows, which dovetails with the uptick in University of Michigan confidence numbers.

Third, the dollar has rallied to a five week high, and many traders now believe the dollar put in its lows in March and April.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, oil has broken below the June lows of $121 and change, and energy stocks have been down—in fact Exxonand BP are near new lows (!) And not just oil: natural gas, gold, and copper are all significantly off their highs of just two weeks ago.

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