Dow 13,000. Yawn.

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Market Movers

by Felix Salmon

Main

Milken Conference Post-Mortem Auto Datapoint of the Day

Apr 26 2007 1:30PM EDT

Should one be angered or simply amused by all the coverage of the Dow 13,000 "milestone", less than two months after the market "crashed"? (That was Tuesday, February 27, in case you've forgotten.)

Every time something like this happens, cynical hacks like myself start pointing out that intraday market movements don't matter. We make ourselves feel better by venting about how the Dow is an index, not an average; about how the move from 12,000 to 13,000 is only a move of 8.3%; about how the stock market is not a particularly useful proxy for overall economic health or anything else; and so on and so forth. But of course we're preaching to the converted, and the great mass of news consumers continues to cheer on the stock market like it's some kind of sporting event.

Maybe the problem is that I don't own enough stocks. If I had some skin in the game, I'd care more, right? So, can somebody give me some Dow or S&P 500 index funds as a birthday present? I'll treasure them, I promise!

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