Stocks: Bull-market rebound or dead-cat bounce?

Barron's readers will remember the hairy old bit of stock-chart-watcher-speak -- the "dead cat bounce" -- the kind of price jump that doesn't mean anything, because even a dead cat will bounce, if you drop it from high enough.

We're happy to report that S&P 500 stocks rose 15 percent for the second quarter. Bloomberg, trying hard not to sound at all hopeful, says that's the biggest three-month jump in six years. For what that's worth.

Do you really figure the economy's strong enough, that listed companies are becoming profitable enough, to sustain and justify that kind of price inflation? For the sake of America's pension funds, I hope you're right.