How things have changed. Now the daily Dow Jones Industrial Average is as common as the weather report. The Wall Street Journal is the most widely read national newspaper in the country. There are as many mutual fund advertisements in the media as cereal ads. And record numbers of Americans see the stock market as a pleasant and mature alternative to the lottery.
Money has a potential beyond buying a burger and paying the electric bill.
You can make money with money. What has fueled this awareness is the unprecedented and accelerating performance of the stock market over the last 10 years. And the lack of any serious downturn over the long haul. In the last three years, the market has performed at 16.35 percent above inflation, and that superior performance has done a great deal to explode the numbers of new investors. The stock market is the one place where return on investment over 10 or 15 years generally surpasses the rate of inflation, says John A. Haslem , professor of finance in the College of Business and Management.