NEW YORK (AP) — The Dow Jones Industrial Average just topped 40,000 for the first time, the latest pop in what’s been a surprisingly good year for Wall Street.

But just like New Year’s represents an arbitrary point in time in the Earth’s revolution around the sun, such milestones for the Dow don’t mean that much inherently.

For one, with just 30 companies, the Dow represents a tiny slice of Corporate America. For another, almost no one’s 401(k) account sees its performance depend on the Dow, which has become more of a relic used for historical comparisons.

Here’s a look at what the Dow is, how it got here and how its use among investors is on the wane:

WHAT IS THE DOW?

It’s a measure of 30 established, well-known companies. These stocks are sometimes known as “blue chips,” which are supposed to be on the steadier and safer side of Wall Street.

WHAT’S IN THE DOW?

Not just industrial companies like Caterpillar and Honeywell, despite the name.

The roster has changed many times since the Dow began in 1896 as the U.S. economy has transformed. Out, for example, was Standard Rope & Twine, and in recently have been big technology companies.

Apple, Intel and Microsoft are some of the newer-economy names currently in the Dow. The financial industry also has a healthy representation with American Express, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Travelers. So does health care with Amgen, Johnson & Johnson, Merck and UnitedHealth Group.

WHAT’S ALL THE HUBBUB NOW?

The Dow just crossed its latest 10,000 point threshold to top 40,000 briefly in midday trading on Thursday. It took about three and a half years to make the leap from 30,000 points, which it first crossed in November 2020.

It’s kept chugging mostly higher despite the worst inflation in decades, painfully high interest rates meant to get inflation under control and worries that high rates would make a recession inevitable for the U.S. economy.

Companies are now in the midst of reporting their best profit growth in nearly two years, and the economy has managed to avoid a recession, at least so far.

IS THE DOW THE MAIN MEASURE OF WALL STREET?

No. The Dow represents only a narrow slice of the economy. Professional investors tend to look at broader measures of the market, such as the S&P 500 index, which has nearly 17 times the number of companies within it.

More than $11.2 trillion in investments were benchmarked to the S&P 500 at the end of 2019, according to estimates from S&P Dow Jones Indices. That’s 350 times more than the $32 billion benchmarked to the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Investors’ 401(k) accounts are much more likely to include an S&P 500 index fund than anything tied to the Dow. The S&P 500 crossed above its own milestone Wednesday, topping 5,300 points for the first time.

That’s what more investors care about. Well, 100-point milestones matter for the S&P 500 as little as others, but the fact that the S&P 500 is higher than ever matters a lot.

HOW DIFFERENT ARE THE DOW AND THE S&P 500?

Their performances have historically tracked relatively closely with each other, but the S&P 500 has been better recently. Its 29.3% rise for the last 12 months easily tops the 21.1% gain for the Dow.

That’s in part because the S&P 500 has more of an emphasis on Big Tech stocks, which were responsible for most of the S&P 500’s gains last year. Hopes for an easing of interest rates by the Federal Reserve and a frenzy around artificial-intelligence technology have pushed them to dizzying heights.

The Dow reflects none of the movements of such marquee stocks as Alphabet, Meta Platforms or Nvidia.

IS THAT IT?

No, the Dow and S&P 500 also take different approaches to measuring how an index should move.

The Dow gives more weight to stocks with higher price tags. That means stocks that add or subtract more dollars to their stock price push and pull it the most, such as UnitedHealth Group and its $523 stock price. A 1% move for that stock, which is about $5, packs a radically harder punch than a 1% move for Walmart, which is about 63 cents

The S&P 500, meanwhile, gives more weight to stocks depending on their overall size. That means a 1% move for Walmart carries more weight than a 1% move for UnitedHealth Group because Walmart is a slightly bigger company by total market value.

SO WHY CARE ABOUT THE DOW?

Because it’s so old, it has a longer track record than other measures of the market.

For a while, a triple-digit move for the Dow also offered an easy shorthand way to show the stock market was having a big day. Now, though, it means much less. A 100 point swing for the Dow means a move of less than 0.3%.

Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska dismissed the latest U.S. sanctions on a series of companies that the U.S. Treasury said were connected to a scheme to evade sanctions and unlock frozen shares as nonsense.

“This balderdash isn’t worth the time,” Deripaska said by message via a spokesperson in response to a Reuters request for comment about the latest U.S. sanctions.

“While the horrific war in Europe claims hundreds of thousands of lives every year, politicians continue to engage in their dirty games. I strongly believe that we need to do everything we can to establish peace, not serve the interests of warmongers,” he said.

NEW US SANCTIONS AGAINST RUSSIA TARGET WEAPONS DEVELOPMENT, BAN URANIUM IMPORTS FOR NUCLEAR POWER

The U.S. Treasury on Tuesday announced it had sanctioned a web of Russian companies it said were being used to disguise ownership of a $1.6 billion industrial stake controlled by Deripaska.

Austria’s Raiffeisen Bank International was planning to buy the stake and dropped the transaction following mounting U.S. pressure to abort the bid.

In its sanctions announcement, the U.S. Treasury alleged it was an “attempted sanctions evasion scheme” to unfreeze a stake using “an opaque and complex supposed divestment.”

Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Deripaska has been sanctioned by Britain for his alleged ties to Putin. He has mounted a legal challenge against the sanctions which he says are based on false information and ride roughshod over the basic principles of law and justice.

Deripaska, who made his fortune by buying up stakes in aluminum factories, has also been subjected to sanctions by the United States, which in 2018 took measures against him and other influential Russians.

Those sanctions were “groundless, ridiculous and absurd”, Deripaska has previously said.

Petr Bysrton is under investigation for money-laundering activities, according to the Munich public prosecutor’s office. 

Bystron is facing allegations that he received up to €20,000 from individuals linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin to spread Kremlin propaganda. 

He is the second candidate on the AfD’s election list for theEuropean elections.  

The prosecutor’s office said searches are being carried out in Berlin, Bavaria and on the Spanish island of Mayorque in pursuit of evidence.

The German parliament voted to lift Bystron’s parliamentary immunity, enabling the police to conduct their searches.

11 public prosecutors and nearly 60 Bavarian police officers have been mobilised, the Munich public prosecutor’s office said.

In response, the chairmen of the AfD parliamentary group in the German Bundestag, Alice Weidel and Tino Chrupalla, issued a statement saying: “The AfD parliamentary group therefore hopes that the investigation will be completed quickly so that there is no suspicion that authorities and public prosecutors are trying to influence the European election campaign.”

The accusations mark a fresh blow against the AfD party, which is currently under scrutiny over allegations that it has links to China and Russia. 

Fellow AfD member Maximilian Krah’s assistant is under investigation for allegedly spying for China.

Krah himself is under initial investigation by prosecutors in Dresden over allegations of accepting payments from Russia and China during his time as an MEP.