Friday, October 8, 2010

Why Dow 11k matters

Tonight on every t.v. newscast across the country, Dow 11,000 will get a mention. The tens of millions of average people who are not traders or market wonks care little about what other indicators like the S&P and Nasdaq are doing from day to day. Each night they hear about the Dow on the so called local t.v. "market report' and its good enough for them. 11k for the average person is a milestone number and most will simply conclude, perhaps with a little cheer, that at least their hard hit 401k's are not falling further.

My cynical side would add that a Dow 11k headline is a good way to smokescreen the lousy employment report and the snowballing banking foreclosure problem. Yes, the Dow matters and it matters quite a bit.

No comments: