Financial Crisis, Stock Market | featured news

The Dow rose higher and briefly topped 14,000 Friday, hitting a milestone not seen since before the financial crisis rocked the world economy.

How is your portfolio doing since the 2008 financial crisis? If you’re like most Americans, it’s probably healed some. After all, stocks are up about 13 percent since October 2008. Bonds are up about 30 percent. “Winnie-the-Pooh” is doing a bit better. A 1926 first-edition copy of the fabled children’s classic can fetch nearly four times what it did in 2008 — a return of almost 300 percent.

Wall Street's bulls have reason to celebrate: The Dow Jones industrial average closed above the psychologically important 13,000 mark for the first time since the financial crisis began in 2008.

Stock prices around the world rose on Monday after European leaders signaled a willingness to tackle the financial crisis brewing there.

The price of gold streaked past $1,700 an ounce for the first time Monday. Investors, beset by worries about the U.S. debt downgrade, Europe's financial crisis and slowing global growth, sought safety in the metal as stocks tumbled around the world.

Investors fled Wall Street in the worst stock-market selloff since the middle of the financial crisis in early 2009 in what has turned into a full-fledged correction. The Dow and the S&P tumbled more than 4 percent on Thursday and the Nasdaq lost 5 percent on fear the United States is staring at another recession and that Europe's sovereign debt crisis is swallowing two of its largest economies.