The Dow climbed nearly 2% last week and now sits within striking distance of 53,000, a number it has never reached. This is news the same way it's news that I've never bench-pressed 800 pounds. The threshold exists only because we haven't crossed it yet. Tomorrow it might be 53,001. Then we'll write about that.
Futures extended gains after a strong week. They do this sometimes. They also retract gains after strong weeks. Sometimes they do nothing and we pretend the nothing means something. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq participated in this extension, which retail traders will interpret as a mandate from God to buy calls at open.
The number 53,000 holds no technical significance. It's round. Humans like round numbers because our brains are lazy and our fingers come in sets of ten. If we had thirteen fingers we'd be writing breathless updates about the Dow approaching 68,900. The market doesn't care about your base-ten number system. It doesn't care about anything.
Striking distance is a term borrowed from boxing, a sport where proximity to your opponent actually matters. In markets, being close to a level is identical to being far from it until you cross it. Then you're just close to the next level. This continues until you die or the exchange closes, whichever comes first.
Some guy in Michigan just set a price alert for 53,000 and he's going to hear that chime Monday morning and think he's finally figured it out. He'll buy three shares of SPY and tell his wife they're going to retire early. By Tuesday he'll be googling "what is a margin call" and blaming Jerome Powell for his lack of risk management. He was never within striking distance of anything except his own checking account.
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