America’s oldest equity index broke through the 40,000 level for the first time on Thursday before slipping back to close at its second highest level.
The Dow Jones industrial average, which started with 12 companies in 1896, hit 40,040 during morning trading in New York but reversed those early gains to finish the session down 38.62 points, or 0.1 per cent, at 39,869.38, having closed at a new high on Wednesday, its eighth record of the year.
The index, which now tracks 30 of America’s biggest companies from Boeing and Walt Disney to Apple and Cisco Systems, briefly fell below 20,000 points at the onset of the global Covid pandemic in March 2020. This year it has risen by 5.8 per cent.
Reasonable
