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Monday, Dec 31, 2012 10:55 PM UTC

Dow rises for fourth straight year

The index is up more than 100 percent since its low in March 2009

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Topics: Wall Street, Great Recession, Dow JOnes, Nasdaq, technology, New York Stock Exchange, U.S. Economy, ,

Dow rises for fourth straight yearA flag flies on the facade of the New York Stock Exchange Thursday, Dec. 20, 2012. (AP/Richard Drew)

The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 7.3 percent in 2012, the fourth straight year in which the leading index maked gains. The Wall Street Journal (subscription required) reports that the index is up an impressive 100.15 percent since its great recession low in March 2009.

After climbing in the first three quarters of this year, the Dow dropped in the fourth quarter for the firt time since 2008. Despite ongoing concerns over the fiscal cliff, the Dow climbed 166 points today, its best ever showing on New Years Eve. The broader S&P 500 index had its best New Year’s Eve since 1974.

WSJ:

The S&P 500 and [technology heavy] Nasdaq both rose for the eighth year in the past 10, after slipping last year. The S&P stands 111% above its 2009 low, and the Nasdaq is 138% above its.

These astounding gains show that the great recession was a once in a lifetime buying opportunity for those who still had faith in the markets (or money to invest).

Alex Halperin is news editor at Salon. You can follow him on Twitter @alexhalperin. More Alex Halperin.

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What To Read Awards: Top 10 Books of 2012 slide show

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  • 10. "The Guardians" by Sarah Manguso: "Though Sarah Manguso’s 'The Guardians' is specifically about losing a dear friend to suicide, she pries open her intelligent heart to describe our strange, sad modern lives. I think about the small resonating moments of Manguso’s narrative every day." -- M. Rebekah Otto, The Rumpus

  • 9. "Beautiful Ruins" by Jess Walter: "'Beautiful Ruins' leads my list because it's set on the coast of Italy in 1962 and Richard Burton makes an entirely convincing cameo appearance. What more could you want?" -- Maureen Corrigan, NPR's "Fresh Air"

  • 8. "Arcadia" by Lauren Groff: "'Arcadia' captures our painful nostalgia for an idyllic past we never really had." -- Ron Charles, Washington Post

  • 7. "Gone Girl" by Gillian Flynn: "When a young wife disappears on the morning of her fifth wedding anniversary, her husband becomes the automatic suspect in this compulsively readable thriller, which is as rich with sardonic humor and social satire as it is unexpected plot twists." -- Marjorie Kehe, Christian Science Monitor

  • 6. "How Should a Person Be" by Sheila Heti: "There was a reason this book was so talked about, and it’s because Heti has tapped into something great." -- Jason Diamond, Vol. 1 Brooklyn

  • 4. TIE "NW" by Zadie Smith and "Far From the Tree" by Andrew Solomon: "Zadie Smith’s 'NW' is going to enter the canon for the sheer audacity of the book’s project." -- Roxane Gay, New York Times "'Far From the Tree' by Andrew Solomon is, to my mind, a life-changing book, one that's capable of overturning long-standing ideas of identity, family and love." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 3. "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain: "'Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk' says a lot about where we are today," says Marjorie Kehe of the Christian Science Monitor. "Pretty much the whole point of that novel," adds Time's Lev Grossman.

  • 2. "Bring Up the Bodies" by Hilary Mantel: "Even more accomplished than the preceding novel in this sequence, 'Wolf Hall,' Mantel's new installment in the fictionalized life of Thomas Cromwell -- master secretary and chief fixer to Henry VIII -- is a high-wire act, a feat of novelistic derring-do." -- Laura Miller, Salon

  • 1. "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo: "Like the most remarkable literary nonfiction, it reads with the bite of a novel and opens up a corner of the world that most of us know absolutely nothing about. It stuck with me all year." -- Eric Banks, president of the National Book Critics Circle

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