Yippee! It's a record

Time to exhale. The Dow finally closed at an all-time high. For the day, the index gained 56.99 points, or 0.5 percent, to finish at 11,727.34. The index’s previous closing high of 11,722.98 was set on Jan. 14, 2000. Oil prices falling under $60 a barrel probably did the trick. Here's how the the WSJ's Marketwatch described the action:

It was touch-and-go there for a while, with the Dow falling below the previous record close just a few minutes before the closing bell sounded (which didn't prevent CNBC from flashing an alert telling people that the Dow had closed at a new record, several minutes before the actual close).

The result suggests to some that a period of weakness may be in store, particularly as we're in this volatile month known as October, the setting for so many of the market's tribulations in the past. "I had figured we'd either get there and make a new high and go south, or just miss it and go south," said Rick Campagna, senior vice president at Provident Investment Counsel. "We've had a pretty good run here and we're a little overbought -- people are starting to get a little excited, and the record has something to do with that, but I think we'll have some quick, short-term weakness in the first couple of weeks of the month, maybe driven by earnings."