Bloomberg’s Heather Burke captures the fundamental issues underneath the current impressive rally:

“Don’t get too excited that the Dow is now 20% above its March 23 closing level. It’s part of a rebound rally probably rooted more in volatility than true confidence the worst is over.

The Dow is still over 20% below its Feb. 12 intraday high and all its members are in the red for the year, led by >40% plunges for Dow, Boeing and Exxon. Breadth is abysmal: no members are trading above their 50-DMA. And profit outlooks may only get worse: today Caterpillar became the latest to withdraw its guidance. As colleague Sarah Ponczek notes, such bounces aren’t taken seriously until they start to show staying power. There’s limited evidence fundamentals are improving and this “bear-market rally” may be a flash in the pan.”

While Hedgeye Risk Management (advises over a $trillion in institutional assets under management) CEO Keith McCullough, who, like yours truly, navigated the past two epoch bear markets, captures typical human nature amid early-stage bear markets. As you know I share his (as well as Heather’s) sentiment, although I express it with less colorful language than does Keith: 

“This short-term lift just tells you what? That we were in a stock market bubble only a month ago, and you have a &#!t-load of people who still need to lose a &#!t-load of money by making the wrong decisions at particularly the wrong period of time.”