Dow Crosses 15,000 for First Time: Inside the Numbers - East Idaho News
Business & Money

Dow Crosses 15,000 for First Time: Inside the Numbers

  Published at

Getty 030413 NYSE?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1367614293073Spencer Platt/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — It was an exciting Friday on Wall Street as the Dow Jones Industrial Average crossed 15,000 for the first time and the S&P 500 soared through the elusive 1600-point level. On this day of milestones ABC News wanted to take a look inside the numbers at some of the staggering stats of this soaring market.

Since the stock market bottomed during the great recession in March of 2009, the Dow has increased 129 percent and the S&P has advanced 139 percent.

Some of the street’s biggest winners during this surge are household names. On the Dow, the top three performers are American Express, up 550 percent, Disney (the parent company of ABC) up nearly 310 percent, and Home Depot gaining just north of 300 percent as well.

As for the S&P index, a pharmaceutical company in the biotech space is leading the charge: Regeneron Pharmaceuticals is up 1900 percent since the market bottomed. Other big gainers include Wyndham Worldwide, the hotel & leisure company, up 1880 percent, Priceline soaring 800 percent and L Brands, the company formerly known as Limited Brands which owns Victoria’s Secret, posting a gain of nearly 700 percent.

But if all those numbers are too much to digest, here’s a simple way to look at this bounce from the bottom. If you put $10,000 to work on March 9, 2009, today it would be worth close to $24,000.

But for all the excitement about Wall Street’s record breaking run, it sadly appears that a big percentage of main street has been on the sidelines during this surge. According to Gallup, only 52 percent of Americans say they now personally have money invested in the stock market – either in an individual stock, a stock mutual fund or 401(k). In April of 2007 that number stood at 65 percent.

Copyright 2013 ABC News Radio

SUBMIT A CORRECTION