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8B Daily News – Wednesday, February 22, 2012 NEW YORK (AP) — It came and went in a flash each time, a number on a board for mere sec- onds, but its symbolic power couldn't be dis- missed. The Dow Jones indus- trial average, powered higher all year by opti- mism that the economic recovery is finally for real, crossed 13,000 on Tuesday for the first time since May 2008. The last time the Dow was there, unemployment was 5.4 percent, and Lehman Brothers was a solvent investment bank. Financial crises happened in other countries, or the history books. The milestone Tuesday came about two hours into the trading day. The Dow was above 13,000 for about 30 seconds, and for slightly longer at about noon and 1:30 p.m., but couldn't hold its gains. It finished up 15.82 points at 12,965.69. Still, Wall Street took note of the marker. It was just last summer that the Dow unburdened itself of 2,000 points in Dow breaks 13,000 but can't hold gains Wall Street three terrifying weeks. Standard & Poor's down- graded the United States' credit rating, Washington was fighting over the fed- eral borrowing limit, and the European debt crisis was raging. A second recession in the United States was a real fear. But the economy grew faster every quarter last year, and gains in the job market have been impressive, including 243,000 jobs added in January alone. ''Essentially over the last couple of months you've taken the two biggest fears off the table, that Europe is going to melt down and that we're going to have another recession here,'' said Scott Brown, chief econo- mist for Raymond James. The tumult of last sum- mer and fall left the Dow as low as 10,655. It closed Tuesday 22 percent above that low. The Dow is 1,199 points from an all- time high, a 9 percent rally from here. 8 DAYS LEFT TO VOTE! A long-awaited bailout to help Greece prevent a potentially catastrophic default, announced before dawn in Europe after 12 hours of talks, helped the Dow clear 13,000. Greece will get (euro) 130 billion, or about $172 billion, from other Euro- pean nations and the International Monetary Fund. In a separate deal, investors in Greek bonds will be asked to forgive (euro) 107 billion in debt. After months in which talks crawled along and vague headlines yanked the market up and down, the conclusion was almost anticlimactic because the markets were already expecting an agreement. European markets did- n't take the news as well. Stocks closed down 3.5 percent in Greece, where stocks have lost 80 per- cent of their value since 2007. Stocks declined less than 1 percent Tuesday in Germany, France and Britain. Investors noted that Greece remains in a deep recession. Its bond investors will take a 53.5 percent loss on the face value of their bonds, which could discourage future investment. In the U.S., investors were cheered early by earnings from Home Depot, watched closely as a barometer of American spending on homes, and Macy's. Wal-Mart missed Wall Street expectations, and its stock lost 4 per- cent, worst among the 30 C & C PROPERTIES Tehama County Businesses! Online Ballots Only at www.redbluffdailynews.com Five Lucky Voters will be selected at random from all eligible ballots on March 1. Each will receive a $100 Shopping Spree at the Tehama County business of their choice! Vote for your favorite stocks in the Dow. The index has climbed steadily this year. It has gained 6 percent and has not lost 100 points on any day. The Greek debt crisis may be receding, but high gasoline prices are emerg- ing as a threat to the eco- nomic recovery, and thus the stock market. A gallon of regular gas costs $3.57 on average, the highest on record for this time of year. With tension building over Iran's nuclear ambitions, Iran has halted oil exports to Britain and France and threatened to stop ship- ping to other European countries. 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The price jumped more than $1 in about 20 minutes after Iran's foreign min- istry spokesman told reporters that a U.N. team visiting Iran has no plans to inspect the country's nuclear facilities and will only hold talks with Iran- ian officials. ''That was the olive branch the market was holding onto,'' said Phil Flynn, an analyst for the brokerage PFGBest. ''If they're not going to dis- cuss the nuclear program, then we're a lot closer to a conflict than further away,'' he said. Airline stocks got clob- bered. United Continental lost 9 percent, Delta Air Lines 7 percent. The Dow transportation average lost 1.5 percent. Materials, telecommu- nications and energy companies led the indus- tries gaining ground. Health care companies, makers of consumer sta- ples and utilities, tradi- tionally stocks to own in more cautious times, were lower. The Standard & Poor's 500 index surpassed 1,363, its peak from April 2011, during the day but James W. 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The next day, it crossed under 13,000, not to return for almost four years. It fell as low as 6,547 on March 9, 2009. A reading of 13,094 would double that. Dan McMahon, direc- tor of equity trading at Raymond James, called the 13,000 mark ''just a big round number'' as a matter of market funda- mentals. But he added: ''Psychologically, it mat- ters.'' The milestone could motivate cautious investors to pump more money back into the stock market. The yield on the government's benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.06 percent from 2.01 percent Friday, a sign that fewer investors wanted the bonds and were instead willing to buy riskier stocks. ''You need notches along the way to measure things,'' and Dow 13,000 is as good as any, said John Manley, chief equity strategist for Wells Fargo's funds group. ''Is 50 older than 49 and a half? Yes, by six months. Do those six months real- ly make a difference? Probably not. But it does give us a fixed point, something we can look at.'' The Dow is also an imperfect measure of the economy's health. It is made up of just 30 com- The North State's premier supplier of stoves STOVE JUNCTION The Over 25 years of experience