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Typically, when believers talk about previous secular bear markets, they measure using the Dow (a faulty, price-weighted index which makes returns fairly arbitrary and not reflective of economic reality), or they measure the Dow without dividends reinvested (which is really stretching reality).
FORBES: The Most Hated Bull Market Ever
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Other equal-weight ETFs also lose the price battle to cap-weighted index funds.
WSJ: Equal-Weight Indexing: A Good Idea?
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As I wrote in a post earlier this year, the problem with putting Apple in the Dow is that the index is price-weighted: stocks with larger absolute prices have a bigger impact than smaller ones.
FORBES: UnitedHealth (And Not Apple) Replaces Kraft In The DJIA
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Aside from the Dow being price-weighted and therefore near useless as a market barometer the DJIA total return index has also long been above its prior high.
FORBES: S&P's (Meaningless) Milestone