Dow Closes Above 9,000

The Dow Jones broke 9,000 points for the first time since November when trading closed: Not only did the Dow end up at 9,034 (up 258 points/almost 3%), the Nasdaq rose 3.5% and the S&P 500 was 3.16% higher. This, even in spite of poor manufacturing news—manufacturing levels are at the lowest since 1980. It's a new year, and analysts think stocks could gain up to 20% in 2009 (the Dow fell 34% last year), but, as Clusterstock notes, "The real newsflow will begin in earnest next week, and we'll get a picture of how bad December really was in the economy."