The debate going around Wall Street has now shifted to exactly what the stock market will need to hold its recent gains and move forward in the future. The month of March was a good one for the stock market, and thus far April has also proved to be a positive month as well.

What is behind the recent improvement in the stock market? Many analysts and strategists point to the economic news that has been “less bad” than it was before. In other words, the economic news has been bad, but it hasn’t been downright terrible like it was in the previous months. Another thing which has helped quite a bid is corporate earnings, and quite honestly they paint just about the same picture as do the economic reports. Many companies have been able to beat expectations, especially the financials, but in reality, the earnings are still quite poor. You could look at it one of two ways; one could say that the financials continue to struggle or you could say that there has been substantial improvement which bodes well for the future.

Economic numbers such as consumer confidence and even housing data have been on the rebound in the last month. If you put it into a historical perspective the numbers are still very poor, but given the desperately low levels they have come back from, the most recent data is certainly an improvement.

Now the question becomes, is less bad good enough for the stock market to keep it up? It is likely that for a while reports that are less bad than had been expected will be enough to help the market, but over time as expectations begin to rise again the economy will have to show that it can once again expand for the market to find its long-term footing. Less bad may be good enough for now, but in the long run we’ll need a little better.