ALL BUSINESS: Can The Stock Market Rally Last?

RACHEL BECK

NEW YORK (AP) — Somebody on a bus asks a friend, "How about that stock market?" The response: "Unbelievable." Caribbean vacationers lounging poolside check their Blackberries for stock prices. Suburban gym members chat about the latest market gains during their morning workouts.

Welcome to the 2009 bull market — or so many people think. They're buying up shares of everything from Google Inc. to Bank of America Corp. at a pace not seen since the 1930s. Since March, the Dow Jones industrial average has jumped 57 percent and the Standard & Poor's 500 index has gained 62 percent.

Investors are betting on a strong economic recovery. But here's the problem: Good news ahead could be bad news for the bull.

To understand why, consider the very thing that has boosted the market. The U.S. government has spent nearly $1 trillion to stimulate the economy and the Federal Reserve has maintained a policy of keeping interest rates near zero.

Those will disappear as the economy's health improves, potentially halting the bull market by taking away what has been its crutch — sources of cheap and plentiful money.