Tag Archives: Dow 20000

D0w 20,000

January 26, 2017 By in Dow 20000, Uncategorized Tags: , Leave a comment

The question is whether having a badly constructed, information-poor stock market index achieve a round-number milestone has any significance.

It’s no secret that I’m not a fan of the Dow.  But I am of two minds:

–On the one hand, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which is what we’re talking about, has been around for a very long time.  It has somehow deflected all attempts over my investing career to replace it in the media with an index that’s more useful, like the S&P 500.  So there’s at least a vague association in the public’s mind between Dow achievements and general economic prosperity.

–On the other, the minute you hear a media pundit use the Dow to interpret the ebb and flow of stocks in general, you know he’s clueless.

The best I can say is that if the Dow can remain higher than 20,000, doing so will have some small positive psychological value.  So I’ll take it.

 

 

Dow 20,000, S&P 2260

January 12, 2017 By in Technical Analysis, Uncategorized Tags: , , , Leave a comment

I’m not a fan of the Dow.  It’s a weird index whose main virtues are that, way back when, it was the financial media’s first try at measuring the US market and that, despite its peculiarities, it’s easy to calculate.  It’s no longer a useful gauge of US stocks, however.  So it’s never used by professionals, only by media people who have little industry background.  (One caveat:  the Dow indices are now controlled by the same people who own the S&P–who now have a vested interested in keeping the Dow alive, despite its drawbacks.)

Still, it’s striking that for the past six weeks 20,000 on the Dow has shown itself to be a strong point of resistance to the US stock market’s upward movement.  The equivalent figure for the S&P 500 is 2260, not a memorable number.

Whether the resistance level is 20,000 or 2260 makes little economic or financial difference.  Psychologically, however, 20,000 is much more daunting, I think, than 2260.  This is especially so now that the US stock market has risen far above former highs.

My bottom line is that, whatever number you choose, the post-election rally has run into its first substantial roadblock.  It’s also at least thinkable that the Dow is developing, at least for the moment, more relevance than I’m willing to give it credit for.  This would suggest that the balance of market power is shifting away from professionals to individual investors who have little stock market experience.    I find this hard to believe, but it’s something I should keep an eye anyway.