Dow Since 1900
The modern commodities supercycle can’t be judged against a two-year chart. This is the full backdrop: the Dow Jones Average, yearly closes, 1899 → present, on a logarithmic axis so a single chart spans the 1920s to today.
Log scale · yearly closes
Source: MeasuringWorth daily Dow Jones Average. Adjusted first DJIA series merged at Oct 1914. Log axis lets a single chart span the 1920s to today without the modern levels obscuring early history.
What the long view actually shows
- Why log scale matters: from 30.9 (1903) to 54,349 (2026) is ~1,750× growth. On a linear axis the first 70 years would be a flat line at the bottom — invisible. Log scale makes percentage moves comparable across a century, which is the only honest way to read macrotrends.
- Secular bull phases are read as sustained log-slope runs, not height: the 1921–29 boom, the 1942–66 postwar supercycle, and the 1982–2000 + 2009–present structural bull markets.
- Drawdowns that look small in points were enormous in log terms: 1929–32 (−89%), 1973–74 (−45%), 2000–02 (−38%), 2007–09 (−54%). Each is a macro regime shift, not noise.
- Commodities are the companion story: industrial upcycles (1900s railroads/steel, 1940s–50s postwar buildout, 2000s China, 2020s electrification) tend to align with the steepest equity-log runs — the same macro forces move both.
- Inflation-adjusted context: a nominal 1,750× Dow sounds staggering, but most of the post-1971 rise is dollar debasement, not real growth. A true macrotrend view pairs nominal Dow with real-asset prices (gold, copper) — the companion charts on this site.