The Market made 16% in 2006.

[JEDI]

dow, s+p, nasdaq?

when people say the market made 16% in 2006, which are they referring to?

 

[KLin]

The stock market.

 

[JasonK]

Supermarket

 

[Pepsi90919]

Originally posted by: JasonK
Supermarket

confirmed

 

[JEDI]

Originally posted by: KLin
The stock market.

ah.. but which one?

 

[sciencewhiz]

Probably either the Dow or the S&P 500.

 

[CPA]

The Dow only.

 

[trOver]

atot stock.... duh

 

[techs]

Usually they mean the DJIA. The Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The Dow chooses which stocks to include in their average, so they sometimes drop companies which tends to over state the actual gains of the stock market. Also the stock market de-lists companies whose stocks fall to what they consider too low a level. Plus, companies can choose to give a dividend, purchase their own stock, etc which influences how well the DJIA reflects the state of the economy.
Although if you look at the DJIA from 1998 to now, the market has done really poorly since it needs to more than exceed the inflation rate just to stay even, due to the factors I explained above.
You also need to understand that the value of the dollar nosedived. So it gets pretty complicated.

 

[TheGizmo]

Originally posted by: CPA
The Dow only.