Dow Gains 259, NASDAQ, S&P Set New Record Highs

Since June 27, the NASDAQ has made a strong advance of 572 points, a nifty 7.68% return in two months.

The S&P 500 has tacked on 196 points over the same span, a 7.26% gain.

The Dow has galloped ahead 1933 points in the past two months, 8.02%, topping both index rivals and closed above 26,000 on Monday for the first time since February 1. Overall, investors are piling into stocks, unconvinced that the Fed's now-quarterly interest rate hikes will slow down US production in major industries. Income creation has been a duopoly since the Trump tax cuts became effective after the start of the year and stocks shook off the shocks of February and March.

With the Dow posting gains in six of the last eight sessions, the industrials have added nearly 900 points since August 16. With a three-day holiday dead ahead, the positive vibe may extend through Friday.

There is no other way around it. This rally is real, and has legs. The next FOMC meeting and widely anticipated 25 basis point rate hike is still a month off, on September 25-26.

Along with the NASDAQ and S&P closing at record highs on Monday, the Dow is a mere 600 points from its previous high from January 26 of 26,616.71.

Summertime... and the profits are easy.

Dow Jones Industrial Average August Scorecard:

Date	Close	Gain/Loss	Cum. G/L
8/1/18	25,333.82	-81.37	-81.37
8/2/18	25,326.16	-7.66	-89.03
8/3/18	25,462.58	+136.42	+55.05
8/6/18	25,502.18	+39.60	+94.65
8/7/18	25,628.91	+126.73	+221.38
8/8/18	25,583.75	-45.16	+176.22
8/9/18	25,509.23	-74.52	+101.70
8/10/18	25,313.14	-196.09	-94.39
8/13/18	25,187.70	-125.44	-219.83
8/14/18	25,299.92	+112.22	-107.61
8/15/18	25,162.41	-137.51	-245.12
8/16/18	25,558.73	+396.32	+151.20
8/17/18	25,669.32	+110.59	+261.79
8/20/18	25,758.69	+89.37	+351.16
8/21/18	25,822.29	+63.60	+414.76
8/22/18	25,733.60	-88.69	+326.07
8/23/18	25,656.98	-76.62	+249.45
8/24/18	25,790.35	+133.37	+382.82
8/27/18	26,049.64	+259.29	+642.11

At the Close, Monday, August 27, 2018:
Dow Jones Industrial Average: 26,049.64, +259.29 (+1.01%)
NASDAQ: 8,017.90, +71.92 (+0.91%)
S&P 500: 2,896.74, +22.05 (+0.77%)
NYSE Composite: 13,102.03, +102.59 (+0.79%)

How is Your Money Doing? Here's the February Dow Scoreboard, Day 5

In the sports world, all manner of statistics and scenarios are routinely trotted out in attempts to reinforce how one team or player is better than another. All of this analysis is done every day on TV and radio talk shows, but the in the final analysis, as so perfectly expressed by the king of sports talk radio, Jim Rome, is "scoreboard," as in, who won the game, no matter the stats.

The same kind of metric can easily be applied to stocks and investments, as it no doubt should be. Thus, there's no need for analysis, no need for bald-headed, econo-speak commentators, no need for inverse correlations, causations, or extrapolations. All that matter can be found in the daily closing prices for individual stocks, or for individual stock indices, such as the Dow Jones Industrial Average, the measure by which everybody measures success.

Over the past four trading sessions, there's been more than sufficient ammunition for all kinds of wild speculation and analysis of what happened and why, and there may be a thousand reasons why the Dow and other indices were slaughtered last Friday and again this Monday. The more simplistic answers appear in the comeback sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, which failed to recoup all of the losses. Thus, it's all in the scoreboard, i.e., the daily closes on the Dow. Nothing more, nothing less. No analysis necessary. You either won or you lost.

Let's just track the Dow through the month of February and see how well those precious stocks are doing.

Here are the only numbers that matter:

Dow Jones Industrial Average dates, closing prices, gains or losses:

Date	Close	Gain/Loss	Cum. G/L
2/1/18	26,186.71	+37.32	+37.32
2/2/18	25,520.96	-665.75	-628.43
2/5/18	24,345.75	-1,175.21	-1,803.64
2/6/18	24,912.77	+567.02	-1,236.62
2/7/18	24,893.35	-19.42	-1,256.04

So, as can clearly be seen, even adding in the smallish gain on Feb. 1, the Dow is down a massive amount. The contention here at Money Daily is that there has been a sea change in the market. Not only is a correction in the works (-10%), but a bear market (-20%) is quickly developing. We'll keep tracking so you at home can keep score on your "investments."

At the Close, Wednesday, February 7, 2018:
Dow Jones Industrial Average, 24,893.35, -19.42 (-0.08%)
NASDAQ: 7,051.98, -63.90 (-0.90%)
S&P 500: 2,681.65, -13.49 (-0.50%)
NYSE Composite: 12,714.83, -30.62 (-0.24%)