Oil and retail stocks pushed all three major US indexes up to record highs yesterday, for the first time since 1999.

Strong retail earnings sparked the rise, with US department store Macy’s seeing shares rise 17.1 percent after posting impressive quarterly profits. Nordstrom’s and Dillard’s both rose over 7.5 percent, with Kohls up 16 percent.

The Dow Jones soared 117.8 points, with the Nasdaq up 23.8 points. The S&P 500 rose 0.5 percent to hit its ninth record close of the year.

However, investors shouldn’t get too excited – last time this happened the immediate aftermath was a sell-off of 10 percent over the following month, and over 45 percent over the following three years.

chart
S&P 500 1999 – 2003
12/08/2016
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