Dow at 10,000? What Next?

janez

The following is extracts from http://www.marketwatch.com/story ... ts-14000-2009-10-15

Markets don't go straight up for long any more than they go straight down. But when they do move, they can move with alarming speed.

When the Dow first closed above 10,000 in 1999, it only took another 24 trading days for it to close above 11,000, according to Standard & Poor's. It took seven years and a bear market after that for the Dow to achieve 12,000. Then it only took seven months to hit 13,000 and then three months to hit 14,000, in July 2007.

The Dow peaked in October 2007 at 14,164.53, according to S&P. Eighteen months after that it was bucking 6,500.

So while 10,000 looks pretty good right now, only a year after we last saw it, remember that a year before that we were at 14,000. So wake me up when we get there. Or Nasdaq 5,000 for that matter.

Of course, the way down could be even easier. After the Dow last closed above 10,000 last October, it fell 18% in the next five days -- almost 2,000 points, according to the S&P.

Perhaps nobody thinks a meaningless number like 10,000 will trigger a move one way or another. But it's entirely possible that at least some investors -- especially those who missed the run-up of the last seven months -- will see it as their invitation to jump in now before it's too late. That could push stocks even higher, until the eventual reckoning.

Last I looked, millions of people were still out of work, factories remained shut and the number of people worldwide who have gone hungry rose by 100 million in the last year, according to the United Nations. These types of real human, economic and social facts tend to get lost in the numbers game on Wall Street.

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