By Meg Richards
The Associated Press

NEW YORK - The Nasdaq composite index reached a milestone in its recovery from the bear market this past week, popping above the 2,000 level before falling back again. And the Dow Jones industrials trekked toward a benchmark of their own, 10,000.

Investors are taking their time as they send stocks to levels not seen since the first half of 2002, and that might be the most encouraging aspect of the market's recovery, analysts say. The deliberate pace of Wall Street's rise shows the market is being driven by fundamentals rather than sentiment, said Richard E. Cripps, chief market strategist for Legg Mason of Baltimore.

"This is a very healthy market, unambiguously," Cripps said. "In a market like this, that is showing some degree of soberness, you know you're not buying into hyped expectations."

The real question, Cripps said, is how much higher investors will push the market over the next several quarters, as expectations rise but year-over-year comparisons become less favorable.

It's already hard to impress investors. The Labor Department announced Friday that the nation's unemployment rate slipped to 5.9 percent in November, the lowest level in eight months. But stocks fell as investors focused on the negative aspect of the report, which found U.S. companies added only 57,000 jobs in November, far fewer than the 150,000 jobs analysts expected.

With economic data and earnings news generally good, there's little doubt the market can continue to move gradually higher, said Richard A. Dickson, senior market strategist at Lowry's Research Reports in Palm Beach, Fla.