The Dow Jones Industrial Average breached the 40,000 level for the first time ever in mid-May, which was sort of an inevitability since the long-term trend for U.S. stocks has always been up and to the right.
Nevertheless, anytime the Dow notches a record-high number that ends in a series of zeroes, market participants and financial media are required to mark the occasion. Although numbers with such neat and tidy endings are no more salient for investors than those concluding with any of the other digits we employ in our decimal positional numeral system, well … they seem to give us a feeling of accomplishment.
