This is the script of CNBC's news report for China's CCTV on March 14, Thursday.
Welcome to CNBC business daily.
The Dow makes it 9 for 9... logging its best consecutive run since 1996.
The S&P meanwhile, managed to close in the green, just shy of its all-time high hit in 2007.
But which index should investors be paying attention to?
CNBC's Jane Wells tries to get us the answer.
It is the king of indices and when it makes history we listen. Here we go, in record territory on the Dow Jones Industrial Average. But what's the big deal? The Dow was only 30 companies, not 500 like the S&P.
Sound on Tape: Even as I've been growing up watching the stock market every day since I was a little kid, the Dow was much more dominant in our consciousness. I actually think it's fading a little bit and the S&P has become the more talked about, more dominant.
Sound on Tape: See, if you measure the economy by the Dow, it's says the US is made up of basically a bank, a plane, a phone, a computer, a can of coke, plus it can come in Viagra, Band-Aids and Simba. The Dow 30 companies have a total market cap of four and a quarter trillion dollars. The S&P 500 has more than 3 times that. So can only 30 companies really tell us what's going on in America?
Sound on Tape: Well the truth is they do. I don't think they reflect the economy as well as the top 500, but listen, anytime you pick the top 30 data points, it gives you a pretty good indication.
The Dow and the S&P move in the same general direction but not exactly. So we decided to try to come up with some analogies. The Dow is to the S&P like.... The Dow is the Beatles, legendary. The S&P is The Stones, still rocking. The Dow is mobile, the S&P is regular old internet. Rodman versus Jordan. Boxers versus briefs. Black smoke versus white. And while the emperor seemed most powerful, turns out Darth Vader was. So you can kind of think of it this way. The emperor is Alcoa, but Darth Vader is Google. Work with me here.
Jane Wells. CNBC, Los Angeles.
So if you had to pick between the Indices. Which index should you be tracking? One analyst told CNBC that it's undoubtedly the S&P 500.
Here's why.
[Sound on tape by: Andrew Freris, Chief Investment Advisor for Asia, BNP Paribas Wealth Management: For example the Dow the way its calculated it's a unbelievably crude average, that takes no relationship to the size of individual companies, so you can have Andrew Frerris incorporated into the Dow, you don't have Apple, i would have exactly the same weight as anybody else.]
The Fed's QE program and signs of strength in the economy have been a key support for the markets.
Adding to investor confidence... Wednesday's retail sales data, which jumped 1.1% in February, the largest increase since September.
So is the market's bull run unstoppable? Here's what some analyst think.
[Sound on tape by: Dan Greenhaus, Chief Global Strategist, BTIG: Here in the U.S. there is definitely a feeling that this has gone too far, that a sell off is warranted and is necessary and will be healthy. I wouldn't be surprised if we were back at 1500 in another month's time.]
[Sound on tape by: Bob Baur, Chief Global Economist, Principal Global Investors: Certainly one would expect some sort of correction, I think a lot of market professionals are indeed looking for a correction of some sort.]
[Sound on tape by: Marc Farber, Editor & Publisher, The Gloom, Boom & Doom Report: Stocks will always fluctuate, all asset prices will fluctuate and I think the mood is such now, essentially very optimistic and prices are no longer very cheap.]
Li Sixuan, from CNBC's Asia headquarters.