NEW YORK -- It came and went in a flash, a number on a board for seconds at a time, but its symbolic power couldn't be dismissed.
The Dow Jones industrial average, powered higher all year by optimism that the economic recovery is finally for real, crossed 13,000 on Tuesday for the first time since May 2008.
The last time the Dow occupied such rarefied territory, unemployment was a healthy 5.4 percent, and Lehman Brothers was a solvent investment bank. Financial crises happened in other countries, or the history books.
The milestone Tuesday came about two hours into the trading day. The Dow was above 13,000 for about 30 seconds, and for slightly longer at about noon and 1:30 p.m., but couldn't hold its gains. It finished up 15.82 points at 12,965.69.
Still, Wall Street took note of the marker.
It was just last summer that the Dow unburdened itself of 2,000 points in three terrifying weeks. S&P downgraded the United States credit rating, Washington was fighting over the federal borrowing limit, and the European debt crisis was raging.
A second recession in the U.S. was a real fear. But the economy grew faster every quarter last year, and gains in the job market have been impressive, including 243,000 jobs added in January alone.
"Essentially over the last couple of months you've taken the two biggest fears off the table, that Europe is going to melt down and that we're going to have another recession here," said Scott Brown, chief economist for Raymond James.
The tumult of last summer and fall left the Dow as low as 10,655. Its close Tuesday put it 22 percent above that low. The Dow is less than 1,200 points from an all-time high, a 9 percent rally from here.
A long-awaited deal to cut the debt of Greece and prevent a potentially catastrophic default on its debt, announced before dawn in Europe after 12 hours of talks, helped the Dow clear 13,000.
Under the bailout deal, Greece will get about $172 billion from other European nations and the International Monetary Fund. In a separate deal, it will owe about $142 billion less to investors who own its government bonds.
After months in which the talks crawled along and vague headlines yanked the market up and down, the conclusion was almost anticlimactic because the markets were already expecting an agreement.
European markets didn't take the news as well. Stocks closed down 3.5 percent in Greece, where stocks have lost 80 percent of their value since 2007. Stocks declined less than 1 percent Tuesday in Germany, France and Britain.
Investors noted that Greece remains in deep recession. Its bond investors will take a 53.5 percent loss on the face value of their bonds, which could discourage future investment.
The Dow has climbed 6 percent this year and has not lost 100 points on any day. The Greek debt crisis may be receding, but high gasoline prices are emerging as a threat to the economic recovery, and thus the stock market.
Higher gasoline prices
A gallon of regular gas costs $3.57 on average, the highest on record for this time of year. With tension building over Iran's nuclear ambitions, Iran has halted oil exports to Britain and France and threatened to stop shipping to other European countries.
The price of oil settled at $106.25, up $2.65 for the day and its highest level since last May. Airline stocks got clobbered. United Continental lost 9 percent, Delta Air Lines 7 percent. The Dow transportation average lost 1.5 percent.
Materials, telecommunications and energy companies led the industries gaining ground. Health care companies, makers of consumer staples and utilities, traditionally stocks to own in more cautious times, were lower.
The Standard & Poor's 500 index surpassed 1,363, its peak from April 2011, but closed at 1,362.21, up 0.98 point. The Nasdaq composite, which is heavy with technology stocks and trading at levels not seen since December 2000, closed down 3.21 points at 2,948.57.
Metals prices jumped because of expectations that demand may improve.
Dan McMahon, director of equity trading at Raymond James, called the 13,000 mark "just a big round number" as a matter of market fundamentals. But he added: "Psychologically, it matters."
The milestone could motivate cautious investors to pump more money back into the stock market. The yield on the government's benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.06 percent from 2.01 percent Friday, a sign that fewer investors wanted the bonds and were instead willing to buy riskier stocks.
Is 13,000 meaningful?
"You need notches along the way to measure things," and Dow 13,000 is as good as any, said John Manley, chief equity strategist for Wells Fargo's funds group. "Is 50 older than 49 and a half? Yes, by six months. Do those six months really make a difference? Probably not. But it does give us a fixed point, something we can look at."
