Weekend Economists Down Under May 23-26, 2014

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32. S&P 500 CLOSES ABOVE 1,900 FOR FIRST TIME

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_WALL_STREET?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-05-23-17-56-14

Call it the Great Slog.

Stocks are bumbling along this year after a gangbuster 2013.

The upward grind is underscored by the Standard & Poor's 500 index, which closed above 1,900 for the first time on Friday. The index has eked out a gain of 2.8 percent this year compared with a 16 percent increase over the same period last year.

Other major indexes haven't fared any better. The Dow Jones industrial average and the Nasdaq composite are barely positive for 2014.

The market's five-year bull run has slowed as investors become more evenly split between those that remain optimistic on the outlook for stocks and the economy, and those that think it's time for a sell-off. Investors haven't seen a "correction," Wall Street-speak for a drop of 10 percent of more, for an unusually long time.

"People have been waiting for this huge correction, but as soon as we have even a little bit of a pullback, people see the value in it, and they're jumping in," said Karyn Cavanaugh, senior market strategist at Voya Investment Management.