Dow Jones Industrial Average hits 14,000

[malaise]

The Dow Jones industrial average climbed above 14,000 for the first time since the Great Recession.

The index rose as high as 14,000.97 in early trading. The index last traded above 14,000 in October 2007.

The Dow has gained 6.7 percent since the start of the year.

A budget deal, struck at the start of the year in Washington, that allowed the U.S. to avoid the "fiscal cliff" was the catalyst for a January rally. Investors then pushed stocks higher amid optimism that the housing market is maintaining its recovery and that the jobs market is slowly healing.

The index has more than doubled since falling to close at low of 6,547.05 March, 3, 2009 after the Great Recession.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505123_162-57567108/dow-jones-industrial-average-hits-14000/

Now 13,997.51
http://www.google.com/finance?q=INDEXDJX:.DJI

[el_bryanto]

1. Is this good news or bad news? nt

[A HERETIC I AM]

4. Good.

It shows traders have confidence in the economy.

[malaise]

5. Anything that proves ReTHUGs wrong is good news

[Sekhmets Daughter]

6. good news for the rich...

bad news for the rest of us...

[A HERETIC I AM]

8. Explain why this is bad news for the rest of us please. n/t

[Sekhmets Daughter]

17. First, please allow me to state that I am not offering a criticism of the Obama administration...

Ask yourself why the DOW is so high? It's because corporations are posting great earnings...of those which have reported their 4th quarter, 77% beat earnings estimates. Where do those earnings come from? Fewer workers, making less money... Below are the 30 companies which make up the DOW (Dow Jones Industrial Average) You tell me which are good for average Americans. Which haven't either outsourced manufacturing, broken the economy, overcharge for their products and services, underpay their US employees. How many of these stocks do you own? Either individually or in your 401K?

AA Alcoa Inc.
AXP American Express Company
BA The Boeing Company
BAC Bank of America Corporation
CAT Caterpillar Inc.
CSCO Cisco Systems, Inc.
CVX Chevron Corporation
DD E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company
DIS The Walt Disney Company
GE General Electric Company
HD The Home Depot, Inc.
HPQ Hewlett-Packard Company
IBM International Business Machines Corporation
INTC Intel Corporation
JNJ Johnson & Johnson
JPM JPMorgan Chase & Co.
KO The Coca-Cola Company
MCD McDonald's Corp.
MMM 3M Company
MRK Merck & Co. Inc.
MSFT Microsoft Corporation
PFE Pfizer Inc.
PG Procter & Gamble Co.
T AT&T, Inc.
TRV The Travelers Companies, Inc.
UNH UnitedHealth Group Incorporated
UTX United Technologies Corp.
VZ Verizon Communications Inc.
WMT Wal-Mart Stores Inc.
XOM Exxon-Mobile

[A HERETIC I AM]

21. Which do I own? Probably all of them through Mutual Funds in my 401(k)

Look, stock prices get bid up or down based on the speculation of a companies FUTURE performance. They are affected by other factors as well, but that speculation is the primary driver.

I'll grant you some of your points, but the likelihood of companies hiring more when profits are up is considerably larger than when they aren't.

With the exception of McDonalds, Home Depot, Wal-Mart and Disney, most of the
Employees of the rest make a pretty decent living.

Could it be better? Of course

[Sekhmets Daughter]

22. Profits have been rising steadily for quite some time...

Yes, expected future performance based on the most recent past earnings. C'mon, just because it is speculation, gambling if you will, doesn't change the fact that most of the component companies are multinationals. I wonder if the individual earnings in your 401K
make up for the cost of your prescriptions or health care/insurance. I'd be willing to bet they don't. Even if your employer is currently paying for part or all of your health insurance premium, that perk could go away sooner than you think. Auto workers now make less money than they did before GM was "rescued" are GM cars much cheaper than they were?

And that doesn't address the point that companies may resume hiring, but they are hiring at lower wages.... And many have laid off enormous numbers of workers over the past several years, so their hiring still doesn't make room for new people entering the workforce.
You think your 401K has given you a vested interest in the stock market, which is exactly what the owners of capital want you think. It's a ruse, a scheme to separate you from higher wages and guaranteed benefits. Had wages kept pace with productivity over the past 30 years, the median household income would be well over $90K rather than hovering at $50K.

Let's not forget the banks that brought about this mess, or the oil companies over charging you for gasoline.... You are way too complacent, but you're not alone, which is why there is little hope things will improve significantly.

[A HERETIC I AM]

24. I was a Broker/Financial Consultant from 2006 thru 09...

Last edited Sun Feb 3, 2013, 09:50 AM - Edit history (1)

And I have been working for firms both tiny and huge for well over 35 years. So with all due respect, I don't need a lecture about the pros and cons of the 401(k) or any of the rest of your points.

I get it, OK? I didn't just step off the yam wagon.

The fact remains that a rising market indicates confidence. That's a good thing.

Would you prefer it go down? Or stay flat? Just so your opinions in how the economy works are justified?

You know nothing about me or whether I "think your 401K has given you a vested interest in the stock market, which is exactly what the owners of capital want you think"

Unless you are or have been a licensed, registered member of the securities industry, I'm willing to bet I know more about 401(k) plans, Mutual Funds and how stocks and bonds work than you do.

I'm more than happy to converse intelligently about this subject with interested parties, but you can keep this kind of condescending bullshit to yourself;
"You are way too complacent, but you're not alone"

[Sekhmets Daughter]

27. Condescending? That was not my intent.

If confidence is all it takes to fix what ails this nation and its economy, why hasn't it worked before? One could argue that since the crash of Oct. 19, 1987, there has been nothing but confidence influencing the market, with just a few minor setbacks, until, of course, the credit crisis. The DOW climbed back from 1,738 to its present levels. During that entire period we saw wages flatten and middle and working class Americans go into debt to sustain a lifestyle they had been raised to believe was theirs. We've watched the cost of everything rise while the rich became not only richer but more powerful and more indifferent to anything but their own desire for ever increasing wealth.

Sorry, but I can't drum up any enthusiasm for a market that has demonstrated its willingness to cannibalize our society for its own purpose.

[yellowcanine]

28. I am not rich and this is good news for me.

Because 60% of my retirement is in stocks and finally the losses from 2008 have been erased.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

29. That is good news.

I know the DOW recovered long before most 401Ks. Sadly there are only about 50 million 401Ks and many are not large enough to be of real help when people retire. In fact the average is just $60K.

This is an interesting article you might want to take a look at.

http://theweek.com/article/index/226886/how-401ks-are-failing-millions-of-americans

[yellowcanine]

30. I don't have a 401K. That is not the only method of retirement saving.

There are 403Ks, there are IRAs, there are Roth IRAs. And there are private company and public employee retirement plans which hold stocks and stock funds. Also individually held stocks and stock funds which people plan to use for retirement, particularly people who are already taking minimum withdrawals from a retirement fund and want to stash any extra funds someplace where there is some growth potential so that if they live beyond the payout of their retirement fund accounts they have some back up other than Social Security. Savings accounts and CDs don't pay squat these days.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

33. That's great...

I just assumed you had a 401K because you said you had just recently recovered your losses. Savings and CDs are abysmal...I put money into a savings account only to accumulate it for a purchase, rather than using a credit card. When I left money in a brokerage account, I spent it on stocks.

[yellowcanine]

36. People who panicked and got out at 11,000 got hosed.....

Stay in and keep paying in as long as you can.....when the stock drops it means your biweekly purchases buy more stock also, so when it does go back up you realize that much more increase...

[Sekhmets Daughter]

38. Exactly...

But people panic and panic creates bear markets. I have now seen enough crap that I believe the "big boys" create these messes every so many years so they can swoop in and buy up the assets of less sophisticated and well heeled investors. I remember listening to Jamie Dimon nonchalantly saying, "These things happen every 7 years or so"

Think about all the small investors who got out at even lower levels....with no where else to put what little they had left.

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. 198 to go to reach its all time, intraday high. n/t

[malaise]

3. NOW 14,000.58 +140.00 (1.01%)

That Kenyan socialist muslim communist who knows nothing about the economy
Bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah hahahahaha
Fuck you ReTHUGs.

[A HERETIC I AM]

7. LOL.... Yup.

Barack Obama - Worlds worst socialist!

[Sekhmets Daughter]

9. Meanwhile some jackass

is talking about how this rewards congress for its profligate spending, rather than punishing it...congress won't cut entitlements when there is no punishment for not doing so...Can you believe these people?

[malaise]

11. You see - this must piss off ReTHUGs

so I'm lovin' it.

They are on their own - fugging sore losers and saboteurs.

[Sekhmets Daughter]

18. I wouldn't care if it was some Freeper or Fox a-hole....

It was a fund manager, speaking on CNBC....

[liberal_at_heart]

10. it's always nice to see your savings rise, no matter how meager they might be

[jschurchin]

12. Thank goodness

I was really worried what the TBTF's were going to do with the $85 Billion a month they get from the Fed. Dow 30,000 here we come!!!

[madrchsod]

13. "CLEAN UP IN AISLE FOUR!"

republicans heads are exploding!

[malaise]

14. Wait until they see this - The Dow logged its best start to the year in almost two decades.

http://auburnpub.com/business/dow-logs-best-january-in-nearly-decades/article_ac939b24-6c19-11e2-9061-001a4bcf887a.html?comment_form=true

The Dow logged its best start to the year in almost two decades.

Stocks rallied in the first week of the year after U.S. lawmakers reached a deal to avoid the "fiscal cliff," and then pushed higher toward record levels as optimism about the housing market recovery grew. Decent company earnings for the fourth quarter and an improving job market also helped lift markets.

The Dow Jones industrial average ended the month up 5.8 percent, its strongest January since 1994, according to S&P Capital IQ data. The Standard & Poor's 500 finished the month 5 percent higher, its best start to the year since 1997.

"There's not a whole lot of bears left here," said Jeff Hirsch, the editor of the Stock Trader's Almanac, adding that the market may struggle to gain further in February.

Stocks have also benefited as investors have put money into equities in January. By one measure, the monthly flow into stock funds was the largest in nine years.

Send for Stanley Steamer

[cbdo2007]

15. Hooray for money!!!

[tjwash]

16. Had rove and rmoney been able to steal Ohio and Florida like they tried so hard to do...

...and the Dow hit 14k today...it would be nonstop fawning, and celebration, and the corporate media would be cheering about how the repugs have gotten America back!

Hell...February would probably get black-history month booted out and replace with romney-month.

LOL...I have already had a coworker this morning say that "this is just george bush's economy we are running on anyway."

[denverbill]

19. Yes, I'm sure according to him it was Obama's economy on January 21, 2008.

All I've been hearing the last 4 years was how Obama fucked up the economy. Now suddenly it's because of Bush?

I don't know how they can live with themselves sometimes.

[malaise]

20. "this is just george bush's economy we are running on anyway."

Is that person 'effin' serious???

[tjwash]

23. Oh yeah. That's the latest rush-meme since the economy started its turnaround

He did the same shit with Clinton...only back then it was Ronald Reagan's economic policies finally come to fruition.

Lather-rinse-repeat

[malaise]

32. That photo is so freaking cute

add word

[nobodyspecial]

25. Yes, and it's your (Dems) economy if the Dow is in freefall

and you haven't even proposed a federal budget.

[Johonny]

26. I blame Obama!

[malaise]

31. This is finally breaking news

If the market had been tanking we'd have had a full day of it.
14,003.22
+142.64 (1.03%)
Real-time: 3:18PM EST

[malaise]

34. Funny - so did RMoney

[Yavin4]

35. This Does Prove That You Can Raise Taxes on the Wealthy and Not Bring About the Zombie Apocalypse

as so many Republicans have warned us would happen.

[malaise]

37. Indeed

It's also the best January since 1994 ( under another Democratic President) - that's 19 freaking years.
ReTHUGs are just LIARS and losers.

[Skidmore]

39. And Chuckie Todd told me this morning that

the economy is in the terlet and the Dems would be blamed or some such gobbledy gook.

[malaise]

40. Poor Chuckie

14,009.79
+149.21 (1.08%)
Feb 1 - Close

[Egalitarian Thug]

41. Why this is really nothing much to celebrate.

Prior to the gutting of ERISA and flogging the alphanumeric soup of "individual retirement plans" on the public, the DJIA was really irrelevant to the average worker. It was a piece of trivia published in the WSJ and fretted over by executives and those with the means to invest, IOW people with knowledge, means, and interest in the topic.

Legalizing and rewarding the theft of the average person's earned equity (pre-seventies pensions as the primary example) and thereby forcing all of us into a market we have no control over and little if any knowledge of has captured and required us to root against their own interests. The worse things are for the average citizen, the better Wall Street likes it, so the higher the averages go.

One piece of evidence of this is the numerous "I've finally recovered my retirement account" statements here on this and the other threads.

You haven't, your equity was still stolen, you will never get that back. You've lost the interest you should have made over the intervening years, you will never get that back. You've lost the time and all the myriad effects that has had on your life, you will never get that back. You've lost the unimaginable amounts of money that you, as American taxpayers, are on the hook for in fueling this so-called recovery you will never get that back and your grandchildren will still be paying for that long after you're dead.

It is the illusion, the cynical manipulation of our collective perception that causes us to cheer our own losses to the exclusive benefit of those that stole what was ours that is so insidious. By making you feel better, you are motivated to participate in your own demise. All those losses listed above, and many more that would take hours to write, came from you and went to them and they don't even have the decency to thank you for it, nor do you have the understanding(?) to demand their gratitude and remuneration.

You're cheering your torturer for backing the thumbscrews off a quarter turn.

[malaise]

42. No this is about the system that exists and

this is very good news.

[Egalitarian Thug]

43. No, it isn't for the reasons listed and many that I didn't bother with.

It is compounded loss (not to mention that it is likely reflective of buying at the top). Assuming no other changes and ignoring the fact that "the system that exists" is a one-way confidence scheme, a DJIA of ~21,000 today would be closer to a recovery. This is an illusion built on lacking consideration of reality.

At least have the self-respect to make the demand.

[malaise]

44. I am no fan of the stock market - anywhere

but people's pensions and savings are tied up in them and reaching 14,000 is an amazing recovery.
We were told that no one was investing, no one was creating jobs and they were lying. This recovery is good for Obama and bad for ReTHUGs

[Egalitarian Thug]

46. Did you read my first reply? We agree that the system is bad and that this is not bad news,

but the celebration of this milestone of a number that does not reflect the real economy, and even if it did, does not represent a recovery, or catching up, is simply more irrational exuberance that serves mainly to make people feel better about being screwed over.

And the political spin is just that, spin. We all despise the republicans, but a major factor, perhaps the single largest factor in the de facto acceptance of what is literally the Greatest Robbery in the History of the World is due to the President and the Party's complicity in it. I understand that we don't want to provide ammunition to the crazies, but we should also never allow our opposition to that insanity to overwhelm or distract us from remembering just who the guilty are, all or them, not just the guys in the other colored jerseys.

[malaise]

49. Good points but

I am not distracted.

[Egalitarian Thug]

50. Fair enough.

We only have a relatively small window of opportunity to influence actions, then it election circus time.

[Nye Bevan]

47. You have not "lost the interest" that you should have made. You are forgetting about the dividends.

If you bought the Dow stocks in 2007 when the Dow was 14000 and you look at your portfolio value today, when the Dow is back to 14000, it will be worth a lot more than the amount of your investment in 2007. The Dow stocks pay dividends at an average yield that is currently more than 2%. So the dividends you will have received (and, typically, reinvested) will, if anything, be *more* than the "interest you should have made over the intervening years".

[Egalitarian Thug]

48. I haven't forgotten, I didn't write a complete analysis in the hopes that someone would read it.

I also didn't include the percentage of people that lost everything and had nothing left to ride out 4 years of taxpayer funded Wall Street welfare that created this "recovery" and a thousand other things that would have been necessary to be thorough. You can't escape the math.

We have suffered over four years of compounded losses and financed the restoration and expansion of those for whom the market exists. As I said to malaise, the DJIA hitting 14K is not a bad thing by any means, but it is far, far away from even getting back to zero. We are still in a seriously negative growth market and will never make up for the losses we were forced to make up for those that suffered no consequences at all for their negligent, immoral, and criminal actions.

In the real world people have almost nothing to do with their accounts. They go to work, the contributions are taken from their checks, their balance goes up or down with the markets, and a couple of times a year they might adjust the percentage going to this fund or that one, but mostly they open their quarterly statement, look at the balance, and toss it in the file or the trash retaining a vague impression that they've gained or lost.

[MadHound]

45. This is only good news for the rich, the elite.

For the rest of us, it meh at best. For one thing, the Dow means very little. For instance, when people are laid off, the stock prices rise for the company that just did the lay offs, after all, labor prices just dropped. Never mind that a few thousand people just lost their jobs. That is but one example.

The rich own 85% of all the stock, the rest of us, well, you can do the math. While your individual portfolio may have gone up, you've still lost value due to the previous stock market losses.

Furthermore, as we've seen time and again, a rise like this is usually followed by a drastic fall, which means that whatever meager gains you've made are probably about to be wiped out, and then some.