The market got off to a decidedly rocky start this week, as traders reacted to news that rating agency Standard & Poor’s cut its outlook on U.S. government debt to “negative” from “stable” for the first time in history. Analysts at S&P didn’t actually lower the nation’s debt rating, but they did intimate that if the United States doesn’t get its fiscal house in order, we could be on the verge of a very serious crisis that could threaten our ability to borrow money.

Then in what only can be described as another remarkable example of this market’s resilience in the face of adversity, stocks rebounded strongly in today’s trade, as investors focused on positive earnings from tech bellwether Intel Corp. (INTC). The Intel earnings helped send the Dow Jones Industrial Average to new 52-week highs, as can be seen in the chart below of the widely followed index.

Even more remarkable is that these new highs occurred even as oil prices surged to above $111 a barrel. Continued weakness in the U.S. dollar and an unexpected drop in U.S. crude oil supplies were to blame for the latest spike in the price per barrel.

So, it seems like neither an S&P downgrade, nor rising oil prices, can keep this market from moving higher -- and it’s this kind of resilience in the face of what usually would cause big selling that has me so confident that stocks will remain in a bull market for the remainder of the year.

Now, that’s not to say that stocks won’t see their fair share of pullbacks. We saw one such bout of selling from mid-February through mid-March. Yet if you were a buyer in March, like we were in my Successful Investing advisory service, you’d be congratulating yourself on making a very smart decision.

The bottom line here is that you don’t want to try and bet against this bull market, as it’s proven itself to be one buck-wild hombre. The better way to play the bull here is to tie up your rope, hold on tight, and ride that sucker until he bucks you off.