Best Year On The Stock Market In 16 Years
By New Year's Eve, at the start of 2014, Wall Street stocks had kept rising, posting record highs. The S&P 500 was up 29%, for the best year since 1997 -- that's 16 years.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average closed at 16,576 on the last day of 2013. It jumped 72 points on that day. This was the Dow's 52nd record day in 2013 -- and brought the Dow up 26.5% over the year.
The Nasdaq rose 38.2% in 2013. By the end of 2014, it was up another 22 points, to 4,176.39. The Nasdaq just experienced its best year since 2009.
Housing costs throughout much of the United States is on an upward swing. Standard & Poor's index of 20 cities across the U.S. showed housing prices rose 13.6% more in October, over last year at that time. This was the largest one-year gain since 2006.
Consumer confidence (the index of people's feelings about he economy) jumped to its highest level in five years, heading up 6 points in the month of December, 2013. It's now at 78.1, which is far higher than the 53.8 during the worst years of the recent economic downturn.
These are all good signs for Alaska tourism.
(Sources, The Financial Times & NBC News Business, January, 2014)