Dow opening today at record: Reminiscent of 1995

The Dow Jones Industrial Average opens this morning at an all-time record high, having topped 18,140 points in trading Friday.

The Dow since 1928 (fedprimerate.com)

It’s faintly reminiscent of the Dow’s cracking another barrier, that of 4,000 points, which it did 20 years ago today.

That milestone, the Associated Press reported then, was “achieved amid optimism in the nation’s financial markets generated by indications … from Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan that the central bank may be finished raising interest rates.”

Topping 4,000 points on February 23 was one of an astonishing 69 record highs the Dow reached in 1995.

The Dow cleared 5,000 points in November, as interest rates tumbled; it was up by more than 33 percent for the year — and no year since has come close to that kind of showing.

(Before the 1990s closed, the Dow topped 10,000 points, a threshold crossed on March 29, 1999, amid what the Wall Street Journal later called “the euphoric atmosphere that pervaded the tech-driven stock market rally.”)

In all, 1995 represented the Dow’s best performance in 20 years, as I point out in my latest book, 1995: The Year the Future Began.