US Indices have hit record highs in 2017 and are continuing to rally since the Trump presidency began back in January. The recent rally in the US Indices is mainly due to big number of companies reporting stronger performance results than the experts were predicting and a weaker dollar. Now let’s look at how the main US Indices have been performing in 2017.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (The Dow, WS30 on the Go Markets MetaTrader FX trading platform) is a price weighted measure of 30 US blue chip companies. This Index covers all industries apart from utilities and transportation.
On 25th January 2017, Dow Jones reached the landmark 20,000 barrier for the first time ever as Trumps pro-growth policies boosted the financial markets. It took under a month for the Index to close at 20,500-mark for the first time ever. Then on 1st March, the Dow reached the 21,000-mark for the first time and the rally continued.
Just over 5 months later, on 2nd August, the Dow reached the 22,000-mark for the first time ever after Apple posted quarterly results that beat the expectations.
The Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P 500, US500 on the Go Markets MetaTrader 4 platform) is an American stock market index, generally viewed as the best single gauge of large-cap US equities. There is over $7.8 trillion USD benchmarked to the index, with index assets comprising around $2.2 trillion USD of this total. The Index includes 500 top companies and captures approximately 80% coverage of the available market capitalization.
The Index first reached the 2,300-mark on 26th January before falling below the level at closing. It took two weeks before the S&P 500 finally closed above 2,300. The S&P first crossed 2,400 on 1st March before again falling below that level at closing. The Index finally closed at above 2,400 on 15th May.
As you can see in the chart below, the S&P 500 has been climbing consistently in 2017 and the Index broke the 2,450-mark on 19th June and it is predicted that it will reach new highs by the end of the year.
By: Klavs Valters
GO Markets
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