Investing.com - The Dow Jones Industrial Average managed to cross 19,000 points on Tuesday, after nearly two years climbing from 18,000, posting a gain of almost 6%.
Triple-zero psychological levels tend to be highly focused on by both investors and the media, though they can lack importance from the point of view of technical analysis.
Still, the climb from 18,000 points when that level was first breached on December 23, 2014 took a total of 483 trading days, making that the seventh longest 1,000 point advance in history, according to the experts on data at Dow Jones.
Following the journey culminated today, the eighth longest 1,000 point run was when the Dow took 975 days to travel from 3,000 to 4,000 points, while the fastest sprint ever happened during the technology bubble in 1999 when index jumped from 10,000 to 11,000 in just 24 days.
The blue-chip index has risen roughly 5.6% since crossing 18,000 points, but is up approximately 195% since the March 9, 2009 bear market low at 6,440.08 points.
Last week, the Dow hit a record intraday high of 18,934.05 on Monday, November 14 which came on the back of a sharp post-election rally based on speculation that policies from incoming President Donald Trump for infrastructure spending would spur economic growth.
Since election day, the blue-chip gauge has risen by about 3.6%.
This last Monday, the blue chip index hit both an all-time closing high at 18,956.69 points, while also logging a new record intraday high at 18,960.76.
The gains have come despite market expectations that the Federal Reserve (Fed) will hike rates for the first time this year, and only the second time in more than a decade, at its December 13-14 meeting.
In testimony to the U.S. Congress Joint Economic Committee on November 17, Fed chair Janet Yellen indicated that the central bank’s policy decision committee already felt at the prior meeting that a hike could “become appropriate relatively soon if incoming data provide some further evidence of continued progress toward the Committee's objectives.”
Markets put the odds of an increase at 100% on Tuesday, according to Investing.com's Fed Rate Monitor Tool.
At 9:37AM ET (14:37GMT), the Dow was up 0.29% at 19,010.79, just off an intraday all-time high of 19,013.12.