We begin the day with buying interest once again in the pre-market futures, as the S&P is up about 15 points from its early-morning low.Buying the S&P futures at 3:00am EST and selling at the open of regular trading would have been profitable every day for the past 12 days.

The enthusiasm in the pre-market futures seems understandable given the unrelenting bid underneath the market. It’s also understandable that the rally has started to make believers out of investors, who have shunned stocks for so long, and have been looking for some kind of all-clear sign to wade back in.

Official results from the government’s ’stress test’ of the nation’s 19 largest banks have been released. In the findings, 10 of the nation’s 19 largest banks will need a total of $75 billion in new capital. This is meant to keep the companies afloat if the recession should worsen. According to the government Bank of America need $33.9 billion, where as Wells Fargo will require $13.7, GMAC (GM’s financial subsidiary) requires $11.5 billion, Citigroup needs $5.5 billion and Morgan Stanley $1.8 billion. Regional banks such as Regions Financial requires $2.5 billion, KeyCorp will need $1.8 billion, Fifth Third Bankcorp will need $1.1 billion and PNC Financial Services will require $600 million.

As the number of unemployed Americans grows to record numbers, the number of new jobless benefits plunged to the lowest level in 14 weeks. It may be a sign that the wave of layoffs is beginning to decline. The Labor Department puts the number of newly laid off at 601k while economics had predicted 635k. It may be a short term decrease however, it is expected that the unemployment rate which stands at nearly 8.5% will increase towards the 10% mark before the recession may finally be over.

For the most part, the indexes moved higher today while the NASDAQ 100 did not gain any ground: it finished flat.

Again, the news of the bank’s stronger than expected performance led the markets to higher ground. Almost a daily occurrence, today’s news caused the NASDAQ 100 to finish relatively unchanged, while the financial heavy S&P 500 gained 1.73% and the Dow added 1.2%. For the total three day week we have the following numbers: the NASDAQ 100 index up 1.95%, the S&P 500 has gained 4.8% while the Dow is up 3.69% for the week.

The day ended with a daily volume of 6,810 million shares on the S&P 500. This volume was 23% more than the daily volume average of the past 3 months. Much of that was at the end of the day as the index advanced.

According to the Energy Department’s Energy Information Administration, crude levels for the week rose by 600,000 barrels to 375.3 million barrels (the expected number by the street was an increase of 2.2 million).

Despite the increase, prices for oil, natural gas, heating oil and gasoline all rose. In London, the price of Brent crude rose $2.03 to settle at $56.15 a barrel on the ICE exchange. In New York the price of crude was $56.34 a barrel, the highest since mid-November.

The KBW index, which tracks 24 of the nation’s region banks, jumped 11.5 percent on the back of reports that many banks would not need to booster their balance sheets by government money. According to an undisclosed source, American Express Co., JPMorgan Chase and Bank of New York Mellon Corp would not be asked to raise more capital. The names which would require more capital include Citigroup, Bank of America and Wells Fargo. Banks across the board advanced regardless of their position.

With better than expected macro economic numbers, the markets eventually finished below their starting levels with financials still languishing. The NASDAQ 100 ended the session with a loss of 0.29%, the S&P 500 finished 0.4% down while the Dow was off 0.2%. Combined with yesterday’s results, we can see the NASDAQ 100 higher by 1.95%, the S&P 500 is strongly positive by 3.02%, and the Dow is higher by 2.46%.

A volume of 5,172 million shares traded today on the S&P 500, less than the daily average volume of the past 3 months by 6%.

Sighting signs of bottoming in the housing market and more robust consumer spending, Fed chief Ben Bernanke is suggesting that the worst of the recession may have passed. In hindsight, economists are saying that the recession started in December 2007 while the full force of the decline occurred in 2008. Based on that prediction, Bernanke is suggesting that a weak recovery could take place in 2009. With 5 million jobs lost in the recession and the unemployment rate around 8.5%, the rate could elevate to 10% by year’s end before demand enters the job market.

We begin the new week with a modest positive tint to the pre-market futures. We have a busy week this week, as the market swallows the last big batch of earnings reports.

The strong upward trend has continued because in today’s activities, the indexes moved higher.

After today’s performance, markets traded above negative for the first time since January. Specifically the S&P 500 is ahead of January’s levels. The NASDAQ 100 pushed higher to close up 2.24% today, the S&P 500 finished 3.44% higher and the Dow was close 2.66%.

Today, the S&P 500’s daily volume was 5,445 million shares. This was relatively close to the average daily volume of the past 3 months.