Economy
Related: About this forumWhat Helped the Dow Index Is Now Hurting It.
It's the granddaddy of stock indexes, a centenarian that is spritely for its age. Since a near fatal fall in March 2009, it's nearly doubled.
But the Dow Jones industrial average is starting to look frail.
The problem is that the blue-chip index has been relying heavily on just two of its 30 stocks, Caterpillar and IBM. Those companies were responsible for a fifth of the near-doubling in the index. But since it hit a 2012 high on May 1, the Dow has slipped, and the software company and the heavy equipment maker have accounted for half of that decline.
"When you have a couple of very high-priced stocks, they're going to skew things," says Paul Hickey, co-founder of Bespoke Investment Group, a research firm. For Caterpillar especially, he adds, "economic strength" outside the U.S. has helped
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2012/07/22/business/ap-us-wall-street-week-ahead.html?_r=1&hp
Downwinder
(12,869 posts)The bank stress test was for the 5,000 range.
snot
(10,549 posts)We should be bugging news media to skip it and focus on the S&P 500 or the Russell 2000.
elleng
(131,370 posts)since its inception in 1896. They do try to be relevant.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_Jones_Industrial_Average
Bugging media won't help, imo.