Dow Jones Industrial Average

The Dow Jones Industrial Average tracks the 30 largest, most-widely held publicly-owned companies in the US.

The above graph identifies three major economic booms during the last 100 years. The 20's saw a large industrial boom in the US fuelled by cars, popular culture, new media and speculation on the stock market. The 50-60's was the "Baby Boom" following WWII, a period of large population growth, consumer demand and peacetime conditions. The third boom is the technology and financial boom of the 90's and early 21st century, including the introduction of the internet and advanced communications. The events of September 11 2001, the middle-eastern "war on terror" and the "dot-com crash" threatened to end the boom--but easy credit, fuelled by policy responses to these events such as low interest rates and lack of regulation allowed the boom to continue.