For the first time ever, the Dow closes above 40,000.

For the first time in its 139-year history, the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above the 40,000 barrier on Friday.

For the first time ever, the Dow closed above 40,000.

Early on Thursday, the blue-chip index broke through the critical level, although it finished the day lower.

Rekindled expectations of rate reductions by the Federal Reserve, which would ease financial conditions for consumers and companies, have given Wall Street a boost in recent days.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report this week that suggested inflation had begun to decline. This might open the door for the central bank to begin executing the rate decrease that investors have been anticipating since the beginning of the year.

“While 40,000 is a significant achievement, ultimately there isn’t much of a difference between 39,999 and 40k,” stated Carson Group chief market strategist Ryan Detrick in a note on Friday.

Nevertheless, this serves as a fantastic reminder of our progress. Consider how frequently recessions and bear markets were discussed during the entire previous year. We are now back to reaching new heights.

As they have always done, he observed, “investors who were patient and ignored all the scary headlines were rewarded once again.”

Although Friday’s markets were choppy, all of the major indices ended the week higher. The Dow closed at a record high of 40,003.59, up 134 points, or 0.3%. The Dow has been in the black for five weeks running.

The Nasdaq Composite ended the day 0.1% lower, while the S&P 500 gained 0.1%.

surpassing 40,000

Although crossing the 40,000 mark has little practical significance for investors, it does draw attention from the general public and, some believe, could contribute to the spread of this upbeat attitude outside of Wall Street.

In a recent report, Art Hogan, chief market analyst at B. Riley Financial, said, “The Dow 40,000 milestone also shows how resilient the US economy has been, at a time where there were a plethora of calls for a recession.”

“The main benefit of crossing these large round numbers is that, if only briefly, it delivers Wall Street news to Main Street. It also confirms that investor confidence is still strong and that business earnings are increasing,” he added.

“The Dow” simply refers to the stock market for many Americans. The limited collection of stocks that make up the index, which includes Microsoft, McDonald’s, Chevron, and other major American corporations, is widely owned by both individual and institutional investors.

A retrospective

The following are some significant halts in the Dow’s journey to 40,000:

The Dow is created. On May 26, 1896, the first daily close was 40.94. The Dow had a poor start, falling 30% by August of that year to an all-time low of 28.48.

Dow 100: In January 1906, the Dow closed in triple digits for the first time. For the average, which had fallen to an all-time low during Teddy Roosevelt’s presidency, that was an amazing comeback. It would take seven more years for the Federal Reserve to be established.

1929 Crash: The Dow dropped 38 points on October 28 and another 31 points the next day. While that may not seem like much in the present, it signified consecutive drops in the Dow’s value of 13% and 12%. Even yet, those two one-day percentage drops rank among the worst in the index’s history.

Dow 1,000: November 14, 1972. Just now, Richard Nixon secured his reelection by winning 49 states. The Dow’s constituents, which hadn’t changed in thirteen years, were International Nickel, Woolworth, and Eastman Kodak.

Crash of 1987: On October 19, the Dow fell 508 points, or 23%, which remains the greatest percentage decrease in one day in history. After one week, it fell by 8%. However, the harm was just temporary. The Dow recovered to its pre-crash levels in less than a year.

March 29, 1999, was the Dow 10,000. The Dow gained 1,000 points in less than a year to reach this threshold, demonstrating the full extent of the “irrational exuberance” associated with the tech bubble. In just the following month, it added 1,000 additional points.

The dot-com stock bubble burst a year later, and by September 2001, the Dow had dropped by about thirty percent.

2008-2009 financial crisis meltdown: The Dow lost over half of its value in less than a year, closing at 6,547 on March 9, 2009. The worst day occurred on September 29, 2008, when Congress rejected a $700 billion bank bailout, causing the Dow to drop by a then-record 778 points. Later, the bailout was authorized.