Another milestone: S&P 500 closes above 2,000

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By ALEX VEIGA

It was a big round-number day for the stock market.

The Standard & Poor's 500 index closed a hair above 2,000 points Tuesday, 16 years after it closed above 1,000 points for the first time.

The milestone added to the market's gains from the day before and extended the stock index's record-shattering run this year.

The S&P 500 index, a widely followed barometer of the stock market, has closed at a new high 30 times this year. By this time last year, it had done so 25 times.

FULL story at link.



FILE - In this Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2014, file photo, trader Leon Montana works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. U.S. stocks opened slightly higher on Tuesday, Aug. 26, 2014, as investors weighed the latest batch of corporate deal news and mixed economic reports on home prices and demand for big-ticket items. The Standard & Poor's 500 index held at 2,000, extending the prior day's gains. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)



Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20140826/financial_markets-fddb34e9a7.html

[Warpy]

1. When you're sitting on top of a pile of inherited money

and your favorite hedge funds keep generating more and more of it, there are only so many places you can put it now that Swiss and Caymans banks are being leaned on to divulge the names of tax cheats just like you.

The good equities earn even more money, although not as rapidly as hedge funds skewing the market with HFT are doing. Still, it's enough to keep the government off your back as you keep buying it up a politician at a time.

[tclambert]

2. We all know that isn't the best measure of the economy's health. However,

Republicans keep claiming they are better for the economy than Democrats, and certainly better for Wall Street. Yet here is another measure by which they fail. Unemployment is another. Job creation, GDP growth, and the federal deficit are others. (Remember how Republicans use to complain about the deficit? They stopped doing that because it's now about one third what it was 5 years ago.)