Dow reaches new record high

The Dow Jones Industrial Average reached a new high Monday, climbing to over 14,200 in the first moments of Tuesday’s trading.

The roughly 100-point spike thrust the blue-chip stock index above the previous all-time high of 14,198, set on Oct. 9, 2007, before the financial crisis. The Dow’s official all-time high is its closing of 14,164 that same day.

The climbing stock market comes despite concern about the strength of the economic recovery, Europe’s debt crisis, the across-the-board sequestration cuts and the possibility of a government shutdown in just a few weeks.

The S&P 500 and NASDAQ indices both also posted healthy gains Tuesday morning.

{mosads}The Dow overall is up nearly 10 percent in the last year and up over 75 percent from the lowest levels it reached during the financial crisis in 2009.

The stock market’s dramatic climb has been boosted by the unprecedented efforts of the Federal Reserve. The central bank has kept interest rates near zero for roughly five years and allowed its portfolio to balloon to over $3 trillion as it has embarked on unprecedented rounds of bond purchases to lower borrowing costs.