Stocks Set to Break Records

Investors will likely get a Christmas bonus in January this year. The stock market is on track for its best year since 1997, with the Standard & Poor’s 500-stock index up 28.55 percent in 2013. The Dow Jones industrial average is also slated to have its best year since 2003 if it keeps up the 24.8 percent increase its seen so far. And the Nasdaq is up 37.6 percent—the highest it’s been since 2009 and the sixth-best yearlong performance in its 41-year history. The Federal Reserve’s easy-money policies are to thank for the boost to investor confidence—and to the economy in general.