Dow Jones Industrial Average Up Over 60% In Past Year

One year ago today, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 6,547.05. Today the DJIA closed at 10,564.38.

One year ago today, the NASDAQ closed at 1,268.64. Today the NASDAQ closed at 2,340.68.

One year ago today, the S&P 500 closed at 676.53. Today the S&P 500 closed at 1,140.44.

That's a 61.4% gain for the DJIA, an 84.5% gain for the NASDAQ and a 68.5% gain for the S&P 500.

One year ago today, the total public debt outstanding for the United States was about $10.9 trillion. Today, this number sits at $12.54 trillion.

One year ago today, the national unemployment rate was 8.1% (February 2009). Today, the national unemployment rate is 9.7%.

One year ago today, the unemployment rate in California was 10.1% (January 2009). Today, the unemployment rate in California is at 12.5%.

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Are things getting better?

Are the current levels of the S&P 500, DJIA and NASDAQ justified? Have investors piled back into the markets too soon? Have the markets been slowly and methodically manipulated higher over the past 12 months, as some people are contending?

Given the tremendous amount of damage that was inflicted on the economy and the finances of the United States, it seems almost unbelievable to me that the DJIA would be trading at over 10,500 points.

This is only about 3,500 points off of the all-time high for the DJIA. This sounds like quite the decline, but when you consider the catastrophic 2 year period that the US economy just (barely) lived through, it's really not.

With a national unemployment rate of nearly 10% and an expected string of MASSIVE deficits as far as the eye can see, can the major three US market indexes possibly continue to head higher?

Or are the wheels about to come off of this rally?

Source: Where Did the DJIA/NASDAQ/S&P 500 Trade On..


Filed under: General Knowledge