Best 2-Day Run For Dow In 5 Years

With news of Citigroup's big capital infusion and the Fed signaling they may cut interest rates again in December, the equity markets have been enjoying themselves over the last two sessions.  Today, the Dow Industrials shot up 331 points.  Building on yesterday's 215 point rise, the index is up 4.3% since Monday's close, making this the best two-day run for the Dow (on either a point or percentage basis) in 5 years.

The Nasdaq and the S&P 500 did even better.

Image: Google Finance

The last time the Dow shot so high so fast was October 11-12, 2002, as the Senate was giving the Iraq go-ahead and the markets finally snapped the 2002 downturn, ushering in a bull market that would see all the major averages roughly double over the following 5 years.

Despite the bloody volatility of the last two months, this swift reclamation of much of the ground that was lost during what finally became an official 10% market correction over the last few days restores the major indices to decent shape on a year-to-date and a 12-month basis.  The Dow, Nasdaq, and S&P 500 are up 6.6%, 10.3%, and 3.6% this year (and 9.5%, 10.4%, and 5.9% since November 29, 2006).

Image: Google Finance

Let's return to the debate prediction tree to pick one more piece of low-hanging fruit: tonight, CNN will throw the Republican candidates at least one YouTube-submitted question that does little more than lament our ostensible economic woes and the Bush policies that provoked them, pointing to recent market declines as a recent indication thereof.  An alert candidate might anticipate this stilted question and (in addition to smacking it down on its dubious merits) ready a zinger that makes use of the most recent market data.

The question (or some equally daft variant) will almost surely pop up; what's less clear is whether any of the candidates will have had sufficient zinger preparation time to fully capitalize on it.  I doubt it.