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S&P 500 Index closes above 2000 for the first time

By August 26, 2014July 9th, 2018No Comments

Tuesday’s finish was the 30th record close this year for the index, which has gained 8.2% in 2014 through the end of trade on Tuesday. The Dow industrials hit an intraday record of 17153.80 on Tuesday but failed to hold a record through the close.

It took 16 years for the S&P to gain 1000 points since breaking through 1000 for the first time in 1998. The stocks in the S&P 500 were trading at 23.1 times their expected 12-month earnings as of March 31, 1998, according to FactSet. As of Friday, the S&P was trading at a price/earnings ratio of 15.5, compared with the 10-year average of 13.9.Back in March 1998, General Electric Co. was the largest company in the index by market value, and it had a forward price-to-earnings ratio of 30.9, according to FactSet. That ratio was 14.8 as of Friday.The biggest stock in the S&P 500 today is Apple Inc., which had a forward P/E ratio of 14.7 as of Friday’s close.

The rally through 2000 marks the S&P’s third major upswing since the late 1990s. The index first breached the 1000 mark on Feb. 2, 1998, and ran as high as 1527 in March of 2000 only to break back below 1000 briefly in September of 2001 and again in June of 2002. The post tech-bubble bull market, which saw the S&P push above 1560 in October 2007, was halted by the onset of the financial crisis. That bear market knocked the index down through 1000 in October 2008 to a multi-year closing low of 676.53 on March 9, 2009.

With the latest milestone in the rear-view mirror, some investors are wondering how much further stocks can go.

(Source: WSJ)