What a Week: Bears Bloodied

It's hard out here for a pimp, according to Three 6 Mafia. They should try short-selling.

This week provided another reminder of why it's tough to be a bear. Deal activity, share buybacks and benign economic news sent the Dow Jones Industrial Average deeper into record territory, while the S&P 500 came within a hair of its March 2000 peak.

For the week, the Dow rose 1.6% and the S&P 500 gained 1.1%, the seventh straight weekly gain for each. The Nasdaq Composite dipped 0.2% for the week, its second straight weekly decline.

The Comp suffered from Applied Materials' (AMAT Quote) weak guidance and setbacks for biotechs Amgen (AMGN Quote), ImClone (IMCL Quote) and Sepracor(SEPR Quote). Strength in energy stocks such as Exxon Mobil (XOM Quote), amid a surge in crude and another round of deal-making, helped the blue-chip averages push ahead.

On Friday, the Dow was up 0.6% to 13,556.53, its 24th record high of 2007, while the S&P gained 0.7% to 1522.75, less than 5 points below its all-time closing high of 1527.46. The Nasdaq rose 0.75% to 2558.45.

Friday's gains came after Microsoft (MSFT Quote) set plans to buy Internet marketer aQuantive (AQNT Quote) for $6 billion in cash. In addition, General Electric (GE Quote) is close to selling its plastics division to Saudi Basic Industries, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The reported $11 billion price tag for GE's plastics division was well above the range that analysts had expected and, along with Microsoft paying a whopping 83% premium for aQuantive, was further evidence of the quite ample global liquidity searching for a home.