video transcript

It came down to the wire for the S&P 500 and in the end it fell just short. The broad benchmark index closing Thursday's session at 1563- just a couple points shy of its all time closing high, that it hasn't hit since October of 2007- driven by continued evidence of a stronger economy, and easy monetary policy from the Fed. Lazard Capital Markets Art Hogan: SOUNDBITE: ART HOGAN, CHIEF MARKET ANALYST, LAZARD CAPITAL MARKETS (ENGLISH) SAYING: "What we'd like to see is confirmation from a broader index like the S&P 500, which is probably the best corollary to the U.S. economy that we have, and we are getting very close. So we are within striking distance of making that all time high on the S&P. And we'd like to see that happen because it really tells us that the move in the market is for real. It's broad and it's continuing." The Dow- which has only 30 stocks- set its 8th record high- and has been up for 10 sessions in a row- for the first time since 1996. SOUNDBITE: ART HOGAN, CHIEF MARKET ANALYST, LAZARD CAPITAL MARKETS (ENGLISH) SAYING: "If you go back in history for the last 10 years we've only seen 7 days in a row happen exactly 8 times and we've only seen 9 days happen 5 times, and you have to go back you know 16 years to find a 10-day run. And, oh by the way, the record is 13 days. So it's hard for us to believe we have much more in terms of consecutive days in a row. But that being said, we think the market continues to have more tailwinds than headwinds." What's driving all these indexes? Howard Silverblatt, Senior Index Analyst at S&P Dow Jones Indices: SOUNDBITE: HOWARD SILVERBLATT, SENIOR INDEX ANALYST, S&P DOW JONES INDICES (ENGLISH) SAYING: "We see the flow numbers coming in 9 weeks solid, money coming in. Also as individuals they also move a lot of the pension and 401k money. They go in and they change it. So there is a bunch of buying in there. Also in the background is that there is no negative news. The good news is that there is no negative news. We didn't go off the cliff. The sequester, although it still will impact us, did not create immediate difficulty." For the year, the Dow is now up more than 10 percent- the S&P 500 not far behind with a gain of 9 percent.