Stocks Send USA Trillion Dollar Birthday Present

As the red, white, and blue of Old Glory celebrates it's 235th birthday, Wall Street was in a generous mood by giving nearly a trillion dollars in gains this week. To be more precise, the US stock market rose every day this week, increasing by a total of 5.6 percent, as measured by the broadest US stock index, the Wilshire 5000. This 5.6 percent gain translates to about $910 billion dollars.

According to Wilshire Associates, this was the best week for the US stock market in nearly a year, which is now:

115.4 percent higher than the March 9, 2009 market bottom.
2.7 percent higher than the highest year-end close ever in 2007.
3.3 percent from the all time US stock market high on October 9, 2007.

Happy Birthday America
Now if we could only have about 15 more weeks like this one, we could pay off the national debt. But since that is not going to happen, my advice would be to just enjoy the gain for the three-day celebration. Thanks for the trillion bucks, Wall Street!

Note: image from deviantart.com.

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Allan Roth

Allan S. Roth is the founder of Wealth Logic, an hourly based financial planning and investment advisory firm that advises clients with portfolios ranging from $10,000 to over $50 million. The author of How a Second Grader Beats Wall Street, Roth teaches investments and behavioral finance at the University of Denver and is a frequent speaker. He is required by law to note that his columns are not meant as specific investment advice, since any advice of that sort would need to take into account such things as each reader's willingness and need to take risk. His columns will specifically avoid the foolishness of predicting the next hot stock or what the stock market will do next month.

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