GAINING SPEED

Trump is the real ‘rocket man,’ with markets...

The market’s moves are coming faster than they ever have before.

The Dow Jones industrial average crossed 26,000 for the first time on Tuesday — just seven trading days after crossing 25,000, the speediest 1,000-point sprint in the 122-year history of the index on an intraday basis.

But the early exuberance that sent the Dow surging as much as 283 points at 10 a.m., to 26,086.12, quickly dissipated as the 30-stock index ended the day down 10.3 points, at 25,792.86.

Despite Tuesday’s pullback, spurred in part by fears of a government shutdown, analysts said, the Dow’s upward swings have been accelerating since the index first closed above 22,000 last Aug. 2.

It took 107 trading days to make the 1,000-point move to 22,000, with the Dow climbing an average 4.5 basis points — or hundredths of a percent — a day.

The move to 23,000 was completed in half the time, taking only 53 days — at a velocity of 8.6 basis points per day.

That rate sped up to 14.5 basis points a day as the Dow raced to 24,000.

The 1,000-point climb to 25,000 averaged 18.1 basis points a day.

When the Dow flew past 26,000 Tuesday morning it did so clocking 57.1 basis points a day — its fastest 1,000-point pace ever.

As the Dow rises, each 1,000-point climb becomes less noteworthy on a percentage basis.

For example, the climb from Dow 4,000 to Dow 5,000 was a 25 percent climb.

The rise from Dow 25,000 to Dow 26,000 is a more modest 4 percent leap.

Since Election Day 2016, the Dow has soared 40.7 percent.

By contrast, the 18,000 to 19,000 jump — reached on Nov. 22, 2016, two weeks after Trump was elected president — marked a 5.56 percent gain.

“One thousand points is less significant now than it was in 2009, that’s for sure,” said Greg McBride, chief financial analyst for Bankrate.com, referring to the Dow climbing back from its recession-era low of 6,547.05.

With the Dow hitting thousand-point milestones so frequently, some on Wall Street also voiced concern that the market may be overheating.

“The speed at which the market has moved higher these past two weeks is unsettling, and the risk of overheating this year is rising, so a meaningful intrayear pullback of 7 percent to 12 percent wouldn’t surprise me,” said Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Independent Advisor Alliance.

Much of the market’s gains have been attributed to what is expected to be a strong earnings season and hopes that tax reform will spur future corporate profits.

“We won’t see who the true winners and losers of tax reform are for another couple of quarters, said Alexandra Coupe, Associate Director for PAAMCO.

“However, we are getting to Dow 26,000 because investors are treating every company like a winner,” Coupe added.