From MoneyBeat:
In another mini-milestone for Japan’s surging stock market, the Nikkei Stock Average was perched above the Dow Jones Industrial Average after both markets had closed for their Monday trading: 15360.81 for the Tokyo index to 15335.28 for the New York benchmark.
It’s the first time the Nikkei crossed the Dow in three years, and marks a return, of sorts, to the heyday when the Nikkei routinely far exceeded the Dow. In fact, from the 1950s through 2002, the Nikkei always had a greater number than the Dow. At its peak at the end of 1989, it was higher by factor of 14, when the Nikkei neared 40000 and the Dow was still below 3000.In the giant scheme of things the crossing doesn't mean much except as a relative strength indicator but I've been at the market for most of the crosses and don't see any reason not to take note of this one.
To be sure, investors are not wildly cheering the crossing point: the Nikkei remains 60% below its record hit in 1989 while the Dow is trading just a touch below its all-time high. And the two indices aren’t really comparable. The Dow is an index of 30 main stocks, while the Nikkei 225 is a broad index more comparable to the S&P 500 (which is considerably below the Nikkei, at about 1666)....MORE
