2008-10-08

Recent sharemarket activity in context

Yeah yeah, the sharemarket has fallen again. But it's been falling for a year hasn't it? Ever since August last year the sharemarket has been in free fall.

Yes, true. But let's keep the recent falls in its historical context. Take the Wilshire 5000 - a broad index that measures the total amount of money invested in shares. Here is the 12 month graph courtesy of INO:


That's cliff diving all right. After a high of 15806.95 in October 2007, the index has fallen to 10056.95 today. A drop of over 5000 points is a drop in value of around $5 Trillion.

1 comment:

Noni Mausa said...

A quick question -- is there somewhere I can see a Dow chart in constant dollars? Or is it measured in dollars?

I can see that something's been lost ( or actually, one out of every three somethings) but I'm not sure what they are.

Do I get bonus points for working at a stockbroker's the night the Dow broke 1000? (November 14, 1972.) We were ripping carbons and stuffing envelopes until even the bats had gone back to bed.

Noni