The Dow Jones industrial average finished the year at 16,576.66, up 26.5 percent – its best annual return since 1995. The index has now posted gains for five straight calendar years. It reached 52 new closing highs this year, the most since 1995.
Of the 30 component stocks in the index, only one failed to advance in 2013: IBM (IBM), which lost 2 percent. Boeing (BA) was the best performer in the Dow, up 81.1 percent. American Express (AXP), Walt Disney (DIS), Nike (NKE) and 3M (MMM) all soared more than 50 percent.
The Nasdaq Composite Index remains well below its dotcom bubble highs, but it fared even better than the other two major indices, gaining 38 percent on the year. The Russell 2000 index of small-company stocks gained 37 percent.
Futures prices for gold, by contrast, fell sharply this year, and shares of Newmont Mining (NEM) suffered as a result. The stock was the worst performer in the S&P 500, falling 50 percent.
With the books closed on the year, the full extent of the stock market stampede of 2013 is now clear: Between stock market gains and dividend payouts, investors in the S&P 500 grew more than $4 trillion richer in 2013.
ReplyDeleteI'm calling a bubble. This pattern is clearly unsustainable. The cheap FED money has pushed this market to highs that are not reasonable. Unemployment is still at record highs compared to all recessions back to the great depression. Interest rates are screwing savers...............
DeleteJust bought a bunch of silver to stash in the safe and hand out as presents to my family.
Next year when Obamacare and the force fed regulations are consumed by business are realized, watch out for a collapse.
Please share with us exactly which stocks are driving this bubble. The current PE ratio is about 17, fairly high to be sure, but far below the values which prevailed during the dot com bubble. As you know, many who bought gold as a hedge against inflation and dollar devaluation are crying in their beer right now. Of course the recent stimulus is unprecedented and so we really have no historic precedent to go by, so you could be right, or wrong, time will surely tell.
DeleteYou guys been calling a bubble for 5 years. Yet the market just keeps growing I gained damn near 22% last year. What did gold and silver do for you.
DeleteThe broad market is down this afternoon and gold and silver are showing renewed strength. Oh well.
ReplyDeleteone day does not a long term plan make
DeleteToo much gain,gonna be some pain.
ReplyDeleteThere are still many problems out here.
Rojayalso,
DeleteI agree. The biggie is the employment picture, yes? Then there's that debt piper we have to pay at some point, huh? I hate going to the market for groceries; prices go up or the packages get smaller.
Jean
Jean
DeleteI think that the economy is very shaky.
As you state the unemployment,and yes the inflation that we are told doesn't exist. There is much much more,basically most of the fundamentals that would support such market gains are extremely mixed. One hiccup from some event will most likely cause great pain.
As I see it the Fed is going to need to get out of the game,and in reality they have been the biggest supporter of the market.
When? who knows.
Whatever is causing the rise up is my friend for now. As soon as it looks like the market will never crash due to conflicting fundamentals of a healthy economy and/or government, the market will crash again. It seems to me that the whole deal is heavily manipulated by the movers and shakers. I just hope that I can be ahead of the next big drop down again. It is a shame that we don't have the same forum we did back in the MW days. I felt like I could filter through several good posts and get a real feel for the thing.
ReplyDelete