Broken Record “Record Breaking”

Countless indicators gauge how the U.S. economy is performing. While most of these are beyond our grasp, there’s one that we all understand: the stock market. Up means good times, down means we’ve got problems.

For the past few months the market has been flirting with setting a new record high, at one point even reaching 11,709.09, oh so close to the record of 11,722.98. And each time the market was on the brink, a multitude of pundits would glow about its significance.

Who could blame them, it’s great news! Why would anyone complain about a record high stock market?

What’s seldom mentioned is that the current record high was set on January 14, 2000, and it’s taken us 6 years to finally come close to besting it. In reality, the pundits are celebrating that we’re almost back to where we were in January of 2000. To place the date in historical context, George W. Bush became President of the United States one year and six days later (Jan. 20, 2001).

As of Friday, 6/16/06, the DJIA index value was 11,014.55, so don’t pop that champagne just yet. For an eye opening chart of the stock market since 2000 visit this link to Djindexes.com.