What's in a Name?

Still full of steam after a six-month rise, the stock market passed a significant milestone last week. As far as Dow theorists were concerned, it was finally a bull market. The Dow-Jones industrial average reached 193.63, breaking a 17-month record. One day later, the rail average moved a full point higher than its previous mark of 49.60, set on March 30, thus "confirming" the industrials.

Some skeptics reserved judgment. They recalled that Dow theorists had been just as sure that a bull market had arrived in June 1948. It had hardly been "confirmed" when stock prices fell into a long...

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