FAST AND FURIOUS

Dow 20K record features a more fearless US

Wall Street is showing little sign of turning against President Trump’s rally.

Investors pushed all three major indexes — the Dow Jones industrial average, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq — to records on Wednesday and didn’t signal the run was over just yet.

The VIX, Wall Street’s socalled “fear gauge,” fell to 10.8, a 52-week low and the smallest reading since it touched 10.3 in July 2014, just as the Dow leapfrogged 17,000 points.

The VIX is an index of a blend of prices for a range of S&P 500 stock options. It is a much-watched measure of investors’ expectation of market volatility.

The lower the VIX, the higher the level of investor confidence. “Call it complacency, call it optimism,” Jack Ablin, BMO Private Bank’s chief investment officer, told The Post.

The VIX level “reflects the view that the 2 percent economy is going to be a 4 percent economy in a year’s time,” Ablin said, referring to growth in gross domestic product.

By comparison, the VIX spiked to 89 in October 2008 as the mortgage meltdown escalated.

As for the Dow’s rise, Ablin said, “20,000 is symbolic and POST SUDOKU could be incrementally bullish. Momentum feeds on itself and gets people off the sidelines.”

The 10.8 VIX reading is more impressive when you consider that, in 2014, it shrank to 10.3 in part because of the Federal Reserve’s quantitative easing program. The QE program, which has since been discontinued, held interest rates near zero.

The current rally intensified after Trump’s surprise win in the November election. Since then, the blue chip index has gained 9.4 percent.

“Look at the transition between Dow 19,000 and now. You don’t see this move very often,” Quincy Krosby, market strategist for Prudential Financial, told The Post.

Just 64 days ago, the index passed 19,000 — the secondfastest sprint between round number 1,000-point plateaus. The rise from 10,000 to 11,000 in May 1999 was accomplished in 35 days.

While analysts concede there may be a bit of a pullback from Wednesday’s high, they remain bullish.

“The market finds a new round number to resist and eventually support,” Bruce Bittles, chief investment strategist at Baird, told The Post.

Analysts also see other points of hope in this rally.

“The breadth of this market is really important,” Krosby said, citing the strength of industrial, financial and transport stocks.

Indeed, the Dow was led on Wednesday by Boeing, which jumped 4.2 percent, to a high of $167.36, after revealing that its mammoth 787 Dreamliner turned a profit after a decade of losses.

Investors also are heartened in what they believe will be a more accommodating environment for business.

“The last eight years have been punitive for business — especially financials,” Christopher Whalen, an analyst at Kroll Bond Rating Agency, told The Post.

“The market is saying, ‘ We believe in growth.’ The challenge is Trump has to deliver,” Whalen said.