Historical data is inflation-adjusted using the headline CPI and each data point represents the month-end closing value. The current month is updated on an hourly basis with today’s latest value. The current price of the Dow Jones Industrial Average as of March 22, 2024 is 39,475.90. On that day, it closed at 7,286.27, a 37.8% decline from its peak.
- The Senate reintroduced the bailout as the Troubled Asset Relief Program on Oct. 3.
- In 2019, the Dow hit two milestones and set 22 record closes.
- The most recent record closing occurred on Jan. 4, when the index closed at 36,799.65, blowing past the all-time high closing of 36,585.06 it had just a day before.
- The chart below shows four of those closing records, as they increase by the thousand.
A November streak occurred after Donald Trump’s presidential win on Nov. 8. Traders were confident in a business-friendly how to use crypto as collateral Republican president. The index closed above 23,000 on Oct. 18, 2017; slightly more than a month later, it broke 24,000.
The most recent record closing occurred on Jan. 4, when the index closed at 36,799.65, blowing past the all-time high closing of 36,585.06 it had just a day before. The 2008 stock market crash was more dramatic than any other downturn in U.S. history. This was less than the 90% drop during the Great Depression.
On Monday, Sept. 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers Holding, Inc. (an investment bank) declared bankruptcy. On Wednesday, panicky bankers withdrew $144 billion from money market funds, almost causing a collapse. This high occurred only 42 trading sessions after closing above 19,000. That is the second-fastest rise in U.S. history (currently, the record is 24 sessions to go from 10,000 to 21,000 in 1999). Since the Dow tracks just 30 large-cap U.S. companies, some critics argue that it is too narrow to represent the state of the overall U.S. economy. Given its large-cap focus, the roster of companies included in the Dow fails to include companies of other sizes.
No one knew if a new bull market had begun until the Dow hit a higher low on March 11, 2003, closing at 7,524.06. However, returns have varied dramatically between past bull markets, so investors would do better to benchmark against a different metric. Specifically, the Dow Jones returned about 9% annually over the past four decades, and its performance will likely be similar over the next four decades. The Dow posted its all-time high during intraday trading on Feb. 23, 2024, reaching a peak of 39,282.28 points. The highest close occurred the same day when the index closed at 39,131.53 points. The peak was led in part by a relaxation of concerns that the Federal Reserve would keep interest rates high because of inflation, thus dampening economic activity.
It took almost four years for the market to bottom out at that time. The records set in the fall were the first ones since the Dow reached 26,616.71 on Jan. 26, 2018. After hitting the Jan. 26 peak, the Dow went into free fall, dropping 4% the next week. On Feb. 8, it entered a market correction when it fell 1,032.89 points to 23,860.46. Interactive chart of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) stock market index for the last 100 years.
History says the Dow Jones is headed much higher
At the same time, the strength in the U.S. labor market meant extremely competitive wages driving consumer demand. Both of those factors sent inflation in the U.S. soaring to record levels not seen in over 40 years. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is one of the many gauges of stock market performance. This history of the Dow since the Great Depression demonstrates how stock market fluctuations reflect the natural stages of the business cycle.
The Dow Jones Just Hit a Record High. History Says Stocks Will Do This Next.
Most market observers think the S&P 500 is a much better representation of the economy, as it includes 500 companies and draws more widely from different sectors. Since the Great Depression, 2007 to 2008 has been the most dramatic period for the DJIA. The market fell more than 50% in just a year and a half because of subprime mortgage and credit crisis that kicked off the Great Recession.
1991 Recession
Bureau of Labor’s CPI since this gives the relative change over time. The recession from 1973 to 1975 also led to a falloff for the Dow, which dropped 45% from its 1,051 peak in 1973 to just under 600 in 1974 (about 7,486 and 3,871 points, respectively, inflation-adjusted). The Dow also lost 26.5% during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. The Dow responded with new highs throughout the latter part of 2019, even though trade negotiations had broken down until November. It hit a milestone on July 11, closing above 27,000, and then another on Nov. 15, closing above 28,000 (in the chart below, milestones are noted).
The one before that came on the final trading day of 2021, when Dow closed at 36,488.63 on Dec. 29, 2021, smashing the record it set on Nov. 8, 2021. The Dow witnessed a sharp decline in the end of November over fears of inflation and the COVID-19 pandemic, before resuming its quest to break more all-time high milestones. Through much of 2022 and 2023, investors were cautious and bearish about equity markets as inflation rocketed. Then, in the last few months of 2023, investors began piling back in as hopes grew that interest rates would soon be cut and a nasty recession averted. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, also known as the Dow or DJIA, tracks 30 large, well-known companies that trade on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq.
Salesforce has been the leader in customer relationship management (CRM) software for 10 consecutive years, and the CRM market is forecast to grow by 14% annually through 2030. Because of the price-weighted calculation method, a $1 change in the price of a stock in the DJIA doesn’t equate to one point in the index since that depends on the Dow divisor at the time. As such, point moves are a way to measure the relative change in the index’s value. That said, when comparing the value of the DJIA over time, many financial sites, as we have done above, use an inflation-adjustment calculator such as the U.S.
The Dow’s all-time high at market close stands at 39,131.53, reached on Feb. 23, 2024. The index’s highest price at any time was the same day, 39,282.28. The index closed above 18,000 on Dec. 23, and then closed its high for the year at 18,053.71 on Dec. 26. The chart below shows four of those closing records, as they increase by the thousand. While you can’t directly buy shares in the market index, you can invest in the DJIA through index funds and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) such as the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF Trust (DIA). These funds track the DJIA through a similar composition and weighting of stocks.
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Dow tracks 30 large, publicly owned blue-chip companies trading on the New York Stock Exchange and the Nasdaq. The selection is not based on strict quantitative criteria but rather on the decisions of the editors of The Wall Street Journal. Companies https://www.topforexnews.org/investing/invest-in-startups-with-these-7-you-can-buy-on/ are chosen based on their reputation, growth, and relevance to the economy, with the aim of reflecting the overall health and trends of the industrial sector of the U.S. economy. It hit an all-time high of 34,200.67 points on April 16, 2021.
The Dow suffered a market correction between August 2015 and April 19, 2016, leading to a 2016 downturn. It began on Jan. 4, when the Dow closed 160 points lower as investors worried about a slowdown in China’s https://www.day-trading.info/currency-and-exchange-rate-real-2020/ economic growth. But this robust start was not indicative of extreme volatility the index would face as the year progressed. First, the conflict between Russia and Ukraine saw gas prices spike sharply.
