It's the Percentages People!

Yahoo! News - Dow Closes Up Nearly 490 Points

"The Dow Jones industrials stormed up almost 490 points, the second-biggest one-day gain ever, and climbed back over 8,000 Wednesday as Wall Street cheered legal and legislative action on the corporate ethics scandals that fueled nine weeks of sharp losses."

Point-increases and point totals are totally irrelevant. What investors should look at is the percentage increase. The only reason point increases make news is because they are big numbers. Anything in three digits is big news, but it really shouldn't be. Single-day increases or decreases of, say, 4% or more are newsworthy. Otherwise, lets stick with political and business scandals, please?