Stocks Have Mixed Record As Prophet: StocksÛª Record as Prophet Has Been Historically Mixed
50	Wifi,: åÇ		-V:.'\V.:	is	mmM	Û¢:<?<: Û¢ t r-!,-	' 1 åÇ ; mtmfm	, w. , -S*	>Û¢ . |å¤|		WmitM		" ; mmm	å¤ mmiå¨ i H</br></br>50	Wifi,: åÇ		-V:.'\V.:	is	mmM	Û¢:<?<: Û¢ t r-!,-	' 1 åÇ ; mtmfm	, w. , -S*	>Û¢ . |å¤|		WmitM		" ; mmm	å¤ mmiå¨ i H 19	frfrij 15 19	MTrj 20 19	Û÷ttTt* 25 19	TTTr 30 19	'T ITT" 35 19	TTTT] 40 19	ttt r| 15 19	1 ITT 50 19	till 55 19	fill 50 19	1 II 1 65 19		1 1 1 1 70 19	II 1 l |T| 75 1980S</br></br>John D. Rockefeller criticized the panic sellers. He and his son, he said, were buying, because ÛÏthere is nothing in the business situation to warrant the destruction of stock values that has taken place.Û</br></br>He was wrong that time, because the nationÛªs economy was in serious trouble even before the stock prices collapsed. But on other occasions in the past half-century he would have been right to ignore the signals from Wall Street. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, the most common measure of stock market performance, has proved to be an erratic barometer of the economic weather.</br></br>According to economists and business historians, sharp fluctuations in stock prices do not necessarily presage similar movements in the performance of the economy, and the stock market has lagged behind economic trends as often as it has forecast them.