So The S&P Closed At 1999.99, Did I Ever Tell You About DJIA 2999.75?

Yes, upon searching, it appears I have.
Five times.
Obsessive much?

Ah, what the hell, so what's one more between friends?
First up though, Eddy Elfenbein at Crossing Wall Street:

1,999.99

On Friday, the S&P 500 closed at 1,999.99. If you’re really serious, Howard Silverblatt, the top numbers guy at S&P 500, says the close was specifically 1,999.98722585876.
Every 0.01 in the index is worth about $88 million. For some context, the companies in the index earn that, on average, roughly every 40 minutes.

Are “.99” closes common? Apparently they are. I looked at the past 1,000 daily closes for the S&P 500 and the #1 decimal (only going out two places) was .99 with 21 closes. Second place went to .89 with 17 closes.

Here’s all the data:

Decimal	Count
0.99	21
0.89	19
0.15	17
0.20	17
0.03	15
0.50	15
0.78	15
0.33	14
0.57	14
0.85	14

 a

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See also his "Benford’s Law and the Stock Market".

Now back to DJIA 2999.75. Here's the January 2013 iteration:

Raymond James' Jeff Saut: Best Stock Ideas for the Next 3 to 5 Years 
2999.75.

I don't have the guts to make five year projections as:
a) right now naming names that far in advance seems like a cross between wishful thinking and necromancy.
b) I am ever alert for the opportunity to lose 25-50% of AUM and the most likely way for that to happen is a shootin' war: India-Pakistan; China-Japan; Israel-Iran or some combination of the above. Predicting we'll be war free for five years seems like a longshot.

2999.75 was the closing high for the DJIA on July 16, 1990.
On July 17 we had the exact same closing print and I pointed out to an old-timer “Hey we almost closed at 3000″.
His reply: “Yeah, but we didn’t, I’m going short”.
 
From the New York Times:

Dow Ends at 2,999.75 With a Rise of 19.55

By ROBERT J. COLE

Published: July 17, 1990

The Dow Jones industrial average flirted yesterday with a close above 3,000, but it ended the day just shy of that benchmark. Stock market analysts contended nevertheless that the performance indicated that stock prices still seemed to be climbing, at least for a while longer.  

Although it failed to close above the 3,000 barrier, the blue-chip index climbed to its third new high in three trading sessions, advancing 19.55 points, to 2,999.75, just 25-hundredths of a point short.
Analysts expressed strong confidence that the Dow, which traded above 3,000 at several points during the day, would soon close that high. How soon, they said, was difficult to say....MORE

That of course was the pre-Gulf war (I) high, sixteen days later Saddam invaded Kuwait.
Less than three months later the market had dropped 21% and I found myself saying "Hmmm".

So I leave it to others to be gutsy on specific names.

From Raymond James:

“For all the sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these: It might have been.”

... John Whittier; an influential American Quaker poet

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