Dow Hits 6,000 For The First Time 26 Years Ago Today

Each day, Benzinga takes a look back at a notable market-related moment that occurred on this date.

What Happened? On this day in 1996, the Dow Jones Industrial Average reached 6,000 for the first time.

Where The Market Was: The Dow finished the day at 6,010. The S&P 500 finished at 703.54.

What Else Was Going On In The World? In 1996, Major League Soccer had its first season in the U.S. The United Nations adopted the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. The average cost of a new house was $118,200.

Dow Hits 6,000: It took the Dow about 11 months to make the 20% gain from hitting 5,000 for the first time to reaching 6,000 in October 1996. Incredibly, it took only another four months for the Dow to hit 7,000 as the dot-com bubble started to inflate.

The Dow continued to knock down milestone after milestone in the years that followed before finally peaking at its dot-com boom peak of 11,750 in January of 2000. The dot-com sell-off eventually sent the Dow back down to as low as 7,197.49 in late 2002.

The Dow ultimately made it back up to 14,198.10 in 2007 before the 2008 financial crisis. The index hit its lowest level of the 21st century in March of 2009, bottoming at 6,469.95.

In January 2017, the Dow hit the landmark 20,000 level for the first time, and it finally reached 30,000 in November 2020. In the 26 years since the Dow reached the 6,000 mark, the index has now generated another 285% in total returns for long-term investors.