The Dow crossed 12,000 for the very first time on Wednesday and this was a major milestone. The stock market is not an area of expertise for me but I have been studying too many global sourcing decisions to not at least start taking some interest on the impact the stock market has on sourcing decisions. CEO’s are responsible for the companies performance and performance is about increasing revenue or reducing costs. The consumer market is doing well and consumer confidence is up and oil prices are down in the last 10 weeks. But an important driver of the DOW is the company earnings numbers. I could not find a single report that speculates as to whether lower costs and global sourcing is leading to better corporate performance. That’s interesting because it is the CEO/CFO who seem to be pushing sourcing folks to find better deals- anywhere in the globe.