[Coop]

Why would I take offense? My comments were quite clearly directed at my own "wealth" during the past year and the past three years.

Sorry you're so bothered about personal anecdotes. That's kind of how I feel about the use of selective data.

I don't give a hoot about the NASDAQ. I have one lousy tech stock. On Feb 14, 2000 the DJIA was under 10,500. This morning it is around 10,650.

No offense. :-)

[AntiGuv]

Personal anecdotes do not bother me at all; I frequently enjoy reading personal anecdotes from my fellow freepers, especially when they involve good news.

What bothers me is personal anecdotes on the economy as if they are representative of anything besides themselves, when there are perfectly good statistics available from which to draw conclusions of general applicability.

Generalizing from personal anecdotes tends to divorce one from a proper perception of wider reality, and usually in the direction of one's biases.

[AntiGuv]

The Dow peaked (near 12,000) in January 2000 whereas the Nasdaq peaked in March, and so it is inaccurate to use the Dow of 2/23 2000 as a comparable barometer. Actually, it's inaccurate to use either, when what one should actually use is the all-time high set that winter for each index. I just didn't feel like looking them up.