Stocks: Dow Industrials Smash 15,000 Barrier - East Idaho News
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Stocks: Dow Industrials Smash 15,000 Barrier

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Getty 050713 DowCloses15000?  SQUARESPACE CACHEVERSION=1367960262801 Spencer Platt/Getty Images(NEW YORK) — Another day, another major milestone for your money: Tuesday the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 15,000 for the first time ever.

The Dow closed at 15,056.20, up 87.31 points, and here’s an odd but fun stat for you — it’s the 17th straight Tuesday that the Dow finished in the green.

Overall it’s been quite a lucky time for investors who have put their money to work in this market.  The Dow this year is up nearly 15 percent and so far 29 of the 30 stocks that make up the industrial average are higher.  The only loser, if you want to call it that, is Alcoa — it is down just one-half of one percent. The biggest winners this year are Hewlett-Packard, up 44 percent, The Walt Disney Co. (the parent company of ABC), up 32 percent, and Boeing, up 26 percent.

The historic highs are not just confined to the Dow. The S&P 500 finished Tuesday’s session with its third straight record-breaking close at 1,625.96–up 8.46 points.  For the year the S&P is now up 14 percent. It’s an impressive start to the year for the broader index, but according to the Bespoke Investment group this year’s performance is only the 11th-best start to a year in the S&P 500′s history going back to 1928.

Even more market records were broken Tuesday.  The Dow Transports Index, a basket of 20 stocks that track trucking, trains and airlines, climbed to a new high. The transports finished the session up over 1.5 percent and for the year the index is now up more than 20 percent. Stocks around the world powered through major milestones too. The Dax in Germany closed at an all-time high, the CAC in France at a two-year high and the Nikkei in Japan at a five-year high.

The big question now is, can this record-breaking rally continue? The answer: History is sending us mixed signals. According to InvesTech Research the average bull market lasts 3.8 years.

The current run has been going on for just over four years, about six months longer than normal, and to a number of traders and technicians that is a sign that this market’s best days are in the rear-view mirror. But there’s another stat that bolsters the bull case: According to Bespoke the last time the market started the year this strong was 1991, and even after a hot start just like what we are seeing this year, the S&P gained another 10 percent.

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