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Dow Jones across any date range
Dow Jones movement across any date range
Pick a start date and end date, then animate the Dow Jones Industrial Average across that period. The chart snaps to the nearest trading day, shows the peak-to-trough move inside the window, and can replay famous market eras for reels or educational posts.
Full data range in this file
12s
Tip: log scale is useful when comparing long periods such as 1929 to today because equal percentage moves take equal visual space. Linear scale is better when you want viewers to feel the raw point changes.
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How a market maker quotes and manages risk
Market Maker Simulator
A simplified visual of how a dealer/market maker can post a bid and ask, fill incoming market orders, manage inventory, and adjust the spread when volatility or inventory risk rises.
18 ticks/sec
12 / 50
6¢
Higher means less quote skew from inventory
Bid
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Ask
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Spread
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Last trade
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Price path, quotes, and fair value
Market maker ledger
| Inventory | 0 shares |
| Cash | $0.00 |
| Spread captured | $0.00 |
| Mark-to-market P&L | $0.00 |
| Trade count | 0 |
| Risk mode | Normal |
The dealer earns the spread only if they can buy near the bid and sell near the ask over time. If they accumulate too much long or short inventory while price moves against them, mark-to-market losses can overwhelm spread income.
Order book snapshot
| Level | Bid size | Bid | Ask | Ask size |
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Event log
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How a bond ladder funds retirement spending
Bond Ladder Timeline
A retirement spending ladder read top to bottom, one row per year. Cash for the current year sits in a high-yield savings account, the next several years sit in Treasury notes bought today at a discount, and the stock portfolio is only sold to extend the far end of the ladder when the market cooperates.
Inputs
Adjust portfolio, spending, inflation, and ladder type
Treasury yields by term (%)
TIPS real yields by term (%) — paid on top of CPI inflation
Year-by-year timeline
Year-by-year summary
| Year | Portfolio start | Return | Inflation | Spending need | Spent from HYSA | Sold to cover gap | Note matured | Far-end refill | Portfolio end | Rungs funded |
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More info: how the bond mechanics actually work
This is a simplified planning view. It is built to explain the strategy, not to reproduce every coupon date.
Treasury billsBought below face value; you receive the full maturity value later. The discount is the interest.
Treasury notesInterest usually arrives every six months with principal back at maturity. Market price can sit above or below face value when you buy.
TIPSTreasury Inflation-Protected Securities pay a smaller real yield, but their principal is adjusted for CPI. A TIPS rung matures at that year’s spending need whatever inflation turns out to be, while a nominal note only covers the inflation you expected when you bought it.
What the chart showsEach rung is one future spending year. The point is assigning dollars to years, so stock sales can be timed rather than forced.
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How long until a company grows into its price
Valuation Simulator
Pick a year and see what investors paid for Amazon, then play the years forward until the business itself was big enough to justify that price. Stock splits happen on their real dates, so a share price that drops 95% overnight shows up as what it is: the same company cut into more slices.
Settings
1 · Look back: did the business catch the price?
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Share price—
×
Shares outstanding
=
Market cap—What the whole company is worth. Splits never change it.
Business vs price
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Your shares
$1,000 invested
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Market cap vs paid
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Market cap paid vs what the business could justify
Split ledger: one share bought that year
Price × shares = market cap, indexed to the year you buy
2 · Look forward: can today's price be earned in X years?
Market cap today
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Needed to justify it
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Growth required
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Recent pace
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Every starting year
| Start | Price as traded | Split-adjusted | Shares then | Market cap paid | Revenue | P/S paid | Later splits | Caught up | Years | Market cap then | 1 share became | $1,000 became | Per year |
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More info: how prices, splits and the data work
As traded vs split-adjustedA split-adjusted price divides old prices by every split that came later, so Amazon's 1997 close of $60.25 shows up as $0.25 today. "As traded" puts the later splits back: it's the price people actually saw on their screens.
Why splits don't change the storyA 20-for-1 split divides the price by 20 and multiplies the share count by 20. Market cap, revenue and your stake in the company stay the same. Your return is the as-traded price change times the extra shares you received, which equals the split-adjusted price change.
What "caught up" meansThe first year the yardstick (revenue × P/S, or pretax earnings × P/E) reached the market cap paid at the start. It is a test of the whole business, not the stock. The stock usually kept climbing ahead of it.
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How the Fed keeps money flowing in a crisis
Quantitative Easing Simulator
When a crisis hits, buyers vanish, banks hoard cash and borrowing costs spike. The Federal Reserve can step in by creating new bank reserves and using them to buy bonds. That's quantitative easing (QE). Press play to watch a panic unfold month by month, then change the Fed's response and compare it with the dashed “without the Fed” path.
The Fed's playbook
85 / 100 peak stress
0.25% from 5.00%
$75B of bonds
18 mo
2 mo after the shock
of purchases
$50B
4 mo/sec
Month -3
Normal times
Market stress
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30-yr mortgage
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Stock index
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Unemployment
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Inflation (2% is the target)
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Where the money goes
Fed balance sheet
What the Fed owns
Treasuries
Mortgage bonds
Other
What the Fed owes
Bank reserves
Paper currency
Month by month: with the Fed vs. without
Show the numbers
| Month | Fed buys | Balance sheet | Reserves | Fed funds | 10-yr | Mortgage | Stress (Fed / none) | Unemp. (Fed / none) | Inflation (Fed / none) |
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More info: what QE is and isn't
Why the Fed needs QEThe Fed's usual tool is its short-term interest rate. In a deep crisis it can cut that rate to almost zero and still not be done. QE lets it keep easing by pushing down long-term rates, the ones that set mortgage and business loan costs.
How the buying worksThe Fed buys Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities from big banks and dealers. It doesn't hand over paper cash; it credits the seller's reserve account at the Fed. Those reserves didn't exist a moment before.
Why yields fallA buyer taking trillions of bonds off the market pushes bond prices up, and higher prices mean lower yields. Investors who sold now hold cash, so they look for other places to put it, like corporate bonds and stocks. That's called the portfolio balance effect.
Liquidity, not just moneyIn a panic the biggest problem is that nobody wants to buy. A huge, patient buyer means sellers can always find a bid, which is why markets often calm down on the announcement of QE, before most of the buying has happened.
Why it isn't automatic inflationReserves sit at the Fed and can only be used by banks. If banks won't lend and people won't borrow, the new money doesn't chase goods. The risk grows when QE keeps going after the economy has healed; try the “QE kept on for too long” scenario.
Quantitative tightening (QT)QE in reverse. The Fed stops replacing bonds as they mature, so its balance sheet and bank reserves shrink and long-term rates drift up. It's done slowly so that liquidity doesn't dry up again.