Bear or bull market rally, you decide

The debate on whether this is a bear market rally or the foundations of a bull market goes on but I thought it would be interesting to consider some of the facts given that, relative to the change in fundamentals, the market recovery appears somewhat excessive.

Last week's economic numbers were in general appalling and the rate of change continued to decline. The chart below shows year-on-year industrial production numbers for Jan & Feb. I have focussed on industrial production numbers because all of the major countries released figures in the last 7 days so they are a good basis for comparison.

This compares to equity market performance over the last 6 trading days shown below...