Dow fleetingly breaks 13,000 points
NEW YORK — It came and went in a flash each time, a number on a board for mere seconds, but its symbolic power couldn’t be dismissed.
The Dow Jones industrial average, powered higher all year by optimism that the economic recovery is finally for real, crossed 13,000 on Tuesday for the first time since May 2008.
However, it finished at 12,965.69, up 15.82 points.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 index surpassed 1,363, its peak from April, during the day but closed at 1,362.21, up 0.98 point. The Nasdaq composite, which is heavy with technology stocks and trading at levels not seen since December 2000, closed down 3.21 points at 2,948.57.
Still, Wall Street took note of the Dow’s brief 13,000 marker.
In the summer and fall, the Dow as low as 10,655. It closed Tuesday 22 percent above that and is 1,199 points from an all-time high, a 9 percent rally from here.
Dan McMahon, director of equity trading at Raymond James, called the 13,000 mark “just a big round number” as a matter of market fundamentals. But he added: “Psychologically, it matters.”
The milestone could motivate investors to pump money back into the stock market.
“Essentially over the last couple of months you’ve taken the two biggest fears off the table, that Europe is going to melt down and that we’re going to have another recession here,” said Scott Brown, chief economist for Raymond James.
A long-awaited bailout to help Greece prevent a potentially catastrophic default, announced before dawn in Europe after 12 hours of talks, helped the Dow briefly clear 13,000.
European markets didn’t take the news as well. Stocks closed down 3.5 percent in Greece, where stocks have lost 80 percent of their value since 2007. Stocks declined less than 1 percent Tuesday in Germany, France and Britain.
Airline stocks got clobbered. United Continental lost 9 percent, Delta Air Lines 7 percent. The Dow transportation average lost 1.5 percent.
Materials, telecommunications and energy companies led the industries gaining ground. Health-care companies, makers of consumer staples and utilities, traditionally stocks to own in more cautious times, were lower.
Metals prices jumped because of expectations that demand may improve.
In other news:
BARNES & NOBLE: It fell 4 percent after missing expectations. Rising costs offset higher sales of both traditional books and digital books. The bookstore chain plans to introduce a cheaper Nook to compete with Amazon’s Kindle Fire.
J.C. PENNEY: Trying to reinvent itself and having brought in an Apple veteran as CEO and changed its logo, it fell 3 percent after Fitch Ratings dropped its credit grade to junk status.