NEW YORK (AP) — Something strange has happened to investors this year. Ever since the financial crisis in 2008, many had worried that the next big disaster was waiting around the corner, ready to clobber them.

But even the gloomiest money managers turned cheerful in January, when the Dow Jones industrial average got off to its best start to any year since 1994. The stock market has continued climbing, sometimes shakily, in the face of government budget cuts that threaten to hamper a sluggish economy. With the Dow reaching an all-time high of 14,253.77 on Tuesday, it seems like the pessimists have been chased into hiding.

The Associated Press asked two experts for their thoughts on the market's rapid rise. One is a bullish optimist, James Paulsen, the chief investment strategist at Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis. The other is a skeptic, Jeffrey Kleintop, the chief market strategist at LPL Financial in Boston.