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                     Key US Stock Index Tops All-time High

   by VOA News

   The most prominent U.S. stock index, the Dow Jones Industrial Average,
   surged to an all-time high in early trading Tuesday.
   Within minutes of the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange, the
   Dow's composite of 30 key stocks jumped past 14,200, surpassing the
   previous closing high of 14,164 recorded on October 9, 2007. That
   high-water mark occurred well before the U.S. and world economies
   plunged into the depths of a recession in 2008 and 2009, and stocks
   fell in lockstep.
   Even now, the surge in the Dow comes as a contradiction to the overall
   state of the U.S. economy. The country's unemployment rate is still
   stuck at an historically high figure of 7.9 percent, with more than 12
   million workers unemployed. And the country's economic advance has
   slowed markedly, up just one-tenth of a percentage point in the last
   three months of 2012.
   In addition, U.S. President Barack Obama, the Democrat starting his
   second term, and his Republican opponents in Congress are locked in a
   long-running standoff over government spending and tax issues.
   Just last Friday, $85 billion in mandated government spending cuts took
   effect, with Obama and Republican lawmakers now sparring over the
   effects of the cuts on the economy and the U.S. labor market.
   But analysts say the Dow index has surged in part because of high
   corporate profits, an improving housing market and the fact that the
   country's central bank, the Federal Reserve, has continued to pump $40
   billion a month into the economy to boost the economic fortunes of the
   world's largest economy. The Fed plans to keep interest rates low into
   2015, another effort to spur economic growth.
   The Dow index includes some of the best known U.S. companies, with such
   household names as the world's largest energy company, Exxon Mobil, the
   huge retailing giant Wal-Mart, and film maker Walt Disney. While other
   broad-based U.S. indexes, such as the Standard & Poor's 500, include
   the stocks of many more companies, the Dow has over decades come to
   symbolize the long-term success of American capitalism.
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References

   1. http://www.voanews.com/content/key-us-stock-index-tops-all-time-high/1615517.html