Dow Hits 14,000; AP Downplays The News
I've heard the media is biased. This is a great example of how the media can take good news and try to smother it with bad news. They are in full freak-out mode now because it's becoming harder to silence news about economic growth. Bush's economic plan is working.
NEW YORK - The Dow Jones industrial average swept past 14,000 for the first time Tuesday after a relatively tame inflation report gave investors reason to extend an extraordinary — but questionable — Wall Street rally.
The stock market's best-known indicator crossed 14,000 in the first half-hour of trading and rose as high as 14,011.79, having taken just 57 trading days to make the trip from 13,000.
Stocks have risen fairly steadily since the spring amid a continuum of buyout news and evidence that despite higher fuel prices and the ongoing problems in the housing market and mortgage lending industry, consumers are spending and companies remain optimistic about the future. With the Federal Reserve ever vigilant about inflation, any news that prices are rising at a moderate pace has added to the market's momentum, as it did Tuesday.
The release of moderately upbeat earnings reports helped reassure a market that had worried that a slowing economy and rising energy prices would slash into corporate profits.
But the Dow's latest accomplishment does raise questions about whether investors are buying more on speculation than fundamentals. A week ago, the average tumbled nearly 150 points after disappointing forecasts from Home Depot Inc., Sears Holdings Corp. and homebuilder D.R. Horton Inc., but only two days later, the Dow barreled 283 points higher as investors chose to put a positive spin on a generally lackluster series of retail sales reports.
In late 2002, the effects of the terrorist attacks and the dot com bubble-burst hit Wall Street. On September 24th, the Dow lost 27% of it's value from Jan 1, 2001. On that day it closed at 7286.27. Fast forward five years later, it has almost doubled. Add that to the near historic low unemployment rate around 4.4%, and it makes one wonder how people can continue to believe the economy is so bad.
