What a Week: Bulls Are Back

from TheStreet.com by twocents@thestreet.com (Aaron L. Task)

Wall Street began the week still basking in the afterglow of last Friday's discount-rate cut and subsequent rally. Traders headed into the weekend feeling even more confident as major averages rallied, despite lingering concerns about the great credit crunch/liquidity crisis of '07 (GCC/LC07).
"Within the next couple of weeks I'd be buying stock," Peter Costa, senior vice president at Eckhart and Co. Inc., says in an interview on TheStreet.com TV Friday. "I don't think we'll see anything disastrous in next three or four weeks."
Three or four weeks counts as a "long-term" horizon for traders, especially in the current environment. But this week was certainly positive for major averages as the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 2.3%, while the S&P 500 climbed 2.3% and the Nasdaq Composite gained 2.9%.
More importantly perhaps, since their Aug. 16 intraday lows, the Dow is now up 7.4%, the S&P is up 5.3% and the Nasdaq has risen 7.8%.
Costa, who was recommending shorting stocks in mid-June, sees opportunities in housing stocks, which have been unmercifully pummeled for the past two years. He didn't name names, but Toll Brothers (TOL - Cramer's Take - Stockpickr - Rating) this week notably overcame a Bank of America downgrade and an 85% year-over-year drop in third-quarter earnings.
Toll's strength embodied the hope creeping back onto Wall Street this week, which began with a continuation of the good tidings from the Aug. 16 intraday rebound and Aug. 17 advance