Our own bearish beliefs remain unchanged. From day one, we’ve said the current rally is one for suckers. But we admit suffering certain twinges of regret; stocks have proved more resilient than we expected. Here’s a quick bullet list of why we remain bearish on stocks’ near-term prospects:

At a roundtable discussion tomorrow (Tuesday), the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) will talk about restoring a rule that some believe could have mitigated the bear market in U.S stocks.

Avery Goodman at Seekingalpha.com asks the intriguing question, “Did the ECB Save COMEX from Gold Default?”

Las Vegas Sands Corp. (LVS) shares more than doubled yesterday (Wednesday) after Singapore’s government pledged support for the completion of a local $4 billion casino project.

Take our quiz: Is the market even close to normal anymore?… Credit freeze continues to thaw… Mayer and Denning on what companies need to rebound… Home prices fall again, consumer confidence crashes, but market rallies? … Eric Fry on when this global financial trauma will come to an end… Plus, want a DVD copy of I.O.U.S.A.? Get the details below…

Is the market over-valued? In this week’s Outside the Box, one of my favorite global equity analyst’s (and no stranger to regular readers), James Montier of Societe Generale does some very interesting analysis on the European and US markets and finds the number of stocks which make his list as possible for being a “short” is at very high levels.

Fear and greed. That financial markets are driven by these two instinctive sentiments is news to no one with at least a passing interest in the subject. But it’s one thing to register the truism another to appreciate the potency.

From Dow Jones Newswire on Tuesday: “Shares of Lehman (LEH) added 12% after the company announced plans to offer $4 billion in convertible preferred shares.” Analysts are crowing happily at this news.

The short sellers appear to be dwindling. This morning the Financial Times reports that global stock markets continued to rally.

The rally comes despite heavy writedowns from Swiss banking giant UBS.

The uncertainty about the markets’ direction reflected the fact that stocks rose after another round of bank writedowns and capital-raisings – developments that might have been expected to send prices lower.