Q. How is the Dow Jones industrial average doing relative to the rest of the market?
A. Not bad, but some other parts of the market are doing even better.
Small-company stocks and transportation stocks have had even bigger gains than the Dow has. The Russell 2000 of smaller stocks is up an astounding 38.6 percent over the last 12 months, versus 26.3 percent for the Dow.
Investors have been flocking to small-company stocks partly because they expect them to benefit more than large multinationals from a pickup in U.S. economic growth and the lower taxes and deregulatory drive that President Trump is promising. Transportation stocks are up even more. The Dow Jones transportation average, a cousin to the better-known industrial average, has soared 41.6 percent over the last 12 months.
Other parts of the market are also up, but not as much as the Dow. The Standard & Poor’s 500 index has also been setting records, as has the Nasdaq composite, which is heavily weighted with technology and pharmaceutical companies. The S&P 500 is up 22.4 percent over the last year, and the Nasdaq composite, is up 25.2 percent.
