The Dow and Marketplace Happy Music!

In our March 20 post about The Dow, we mentioned the evening reports from National Public Radio's Marketplace program where every time The Dow is down for the day, that they play the song, Stormy Weather. And during the past week there has been lots of Stormy Weather from The Dow.

A correspondent, who had read our post, asked what song does Marketplace play when The Dow is up at the end of the day? We're happy to bring you the answer to that question. When The Dow is up at the end of the day, Marketplace plays I'm In the Money, apropos for the daily winners! They will be playing I'm In The Money tonight about 6:45 p.m. That's because The Dow today closed at 4 p.m. on the New York Stock Exchange at 10,259, 284.54 point over yesterday's closing of 9974.

For what these numbers mean see our previous post here. When The Dow is up as today's results indicate, it means all 30 stocks showed increases in the number of sales. When The Dow is down as it was yesterday, it meant those 30 stocks were by their owners, meaning momentary losses to these bulwark companies, of which locally, General Electric was affected. When looked at over the past year all 30 Dow stock companies increased their value 20 to 30 per cent.

Day to day trading means little in the long term unless downs continue or ups continue for long periods. Otherwise in following The Dow daily you will be subject to the yo-yo effect or daily ups and downs that day traders feed on. Winning investors are those quite often in for the long term and who see long term benefits and value.

For short term investors and day traders, you have 'know when to hold'em and know when to fold'em!' to avoid the Stormy Weather music.

For those interested in learning more about investing, its risks and rewards, the Berkshire Athenaeum has several books available for loan, including Investing 101 by Kathy Kristoff, Wall Street's Buried Treasure: the low priced value investing approach to finding great stocks by Harry Houtkin, The Bogleheads' guide to Investing by Taylor Larimore, Mel Lindauer, Michael LeBoeuf with Introduction by John Bogle, and many others. And you will want to consult the Investopedia link on our sidebar or go directly there.

Always consider your local public library as a possible source for your financial information.

Do You Follow the DOW?

If you are in business, have a pension or retirement plan, or are an investor, then DOW or the Dow Jones Industrial Index is part of your everyday vocabulary.

If you watch the News on Television, listen to the Radio, or view News Online, then you know the daily DOW numbers are reported all the time, often many times during the day.

A change in the DOW results in a great adrenaline rush. When the DOW goes down, the National Public Radio program, Marketplace, plays the song Stormy Weather. Lately there's been a lot of Stormy Weather and DOW has been falling from its recent 11,000 highs down to 10,100s.

In Feb 24, 2009 we wrote Dow Up, Dow Down! What Does It All Mean? At that time the DOW was at 7100 and a crash was apparent. So 11,000 or even 10,000 is better than February 2009. The DOW has increased by more than 50% since those lows. For what's behind these numbers click on the article.

The DOW is made up 30 carefully selected companies, selected by the Wall Street Journal editorial boards. These stocks are highly valued and fairly stable, but when General Motors and Citigroup dipped below $10 a share they were removed from the DOW and replaced by Travelers Companies and Cisco Systems.

When we want to know what's happening on the DOW, we check out 2 websites that are particularly good. The first site is Bloomberg.com where there are updates every 15 minutes and it lists ongoing activity for the 30 DOW stocks that make up the Index. (It also answers the reference question, What companies make up the DOW Jones Industrial Index?) The second site we like is MarketWatch.com, where it gives you minute by minute trading results and fluctuations on the DOW (not for those with heart conditions if volatility causes you great concern) like a ticker.

All kinds of people try to figure out what these ups and downs mean and commentators make regular prognostications. But there are no fixed answers and all the activity feeds into those fascinated with numbers games, statistics, and real life gambling.

When the DOW closed today at 4 pm Eastern Time, it had fallen to 10,068, 376 points from the previous day's closing of 10,444. Does this mean crash or correction or nothing at all? Such is the Market and only Time will tell its ultimate effects. But after 2008 the economy did go into a dramatic spin and now foreclosures, state bankruptcies, 9.9% unemployment rates, and dramatic 1st quarter 2010 profits were the effect. And financial reform after 2 years has still not happened.