A Merry Christmas?> “Not for many years has a Christmas season begun with so many tidings of spreading discomfort and lack of joy about the U.S. economy…For many Americans, the Yuletide will be a time of less elaborate meals, infrequent parties, fewer and cheaper presents…All last week the bad news mounted. The auto industry reeled from a new-model sales rate 35.8% below last November’s already somewhat depressed pace.”—Time, December 9, 1974
If this news sounds familiar, consider how the market performed during the next ten years. In 1974, the Dow was at 579.94. Ten years later, the Dow hit 1163.21. If you’d invested $1,000 on the same day of this issue, it would have been worth $2,006 ten years later, more than doubling your investment.
