DJIA Meaningless or Rigged?

[zipplewrath]

1. Welcome to the markets

Never confuse the markets with the economy. And never confuse "indexes" like DJIA, NASDAQ, NIKKEI, S&P, etc. with individual market segments or stocks. Your investments can do bad when your friends are okay, and your friends can be suffering when your investments are soaring. Also, markets tend to try to predict the future. They are not always right by any means. But for example, tariffs were "built into the market" when he got elected. They are now reacting to what they believe will be true in about 12 weeks.

The best advice I ever got was that for the "casual investor" your goal is "time in the market" not "timing the market". They'll go up and down and don't really expect to know why.