Dow Hits Five Year High, Stock Markets Grow Worldwide

Dow Hits Five Year High, Stock Markets Grow Worldwide

With consumer confidence pretty low, the Dow still hit a five-year high after Pfizer showed fantastic earnings.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average did quite well gaining 0.6 percent to 13959 this afternoon, closing on the highest level since October 2007.

The Standard & Poor’s 500 index rose too, by eight points, or 0.5 percent this Tuesday to 1508. The Nasdaq Composite Index didn't have too big a fluctuation, ending at 3154, mostly because of tech shares not performing as well as expected.

The Standard & Poor industry sector was dominated by energy outperformers, as Valero Energy had a significant increase VLO+12.92% after showing great figures in fourth quarter earnings.

The Dow Jones was led by Pfizer as the pharmaceutical company showed good figures in fourth quarter earning too, surprising even the most optimistic expectations.

Ford dropped by 4.59 percent after its European sales underperformed.

European stock markets rose too, with the Stoxx Europe 600 gainging 0.3 percent, and reaching its highest value since February 2011, thanks in no small measure to the good consumer confidence data reported in from Germany.

Also, U.K.’s FTSE 100, Germany’s DAX and France’s CAC-40 rose to their highest values in years.

Like the Dow, markets in Asia also rose thanks to Japanese stocks while Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 had its ninth consecutive advance hitting its highest level since 2011.

Posted by James Fried on Wednesday January 30 2013, 4:06 AM EST. Ref: The Wall Street Journal. All trademarks acknowledged. Filed under Featured News, Finance. Comments and Trackbacks closed. Follow responses: RSS 2.0