Mark Your Calendars: Dow 21,000 in Five Years

Editor's Note: Jon D. Markman writes a weekly column for CNBC on MSN Money that is republished here on TheStreet.com.

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Now that the Dow Jones Industrial Average is a teenager, it's time to think about the day when it gets all grown up and can drive -- and even drink. For while 13,000 is an interesting number, it's really just a milestone on the way to much bigger things.

In the next four years, well before the 2012 presidential election, it would not surprise many professionals, including this one, if the famed market gauge advanced as much as 60% higher, to 21,000.

It's not quite as crazy as you might think, for it amounts to growth of only about 10% a year, once you account for the miracle of compounding.

In fact, Dow 21,000 is a modest number compared with most other meaningful measures of stock value on the planet, and the index has the means and motivation to get there.

Despite hitting all-time highs lately, the standard of large U.S. industrial companies' might is up a paltry 16% over the past seven years. That's virtually flat compared with the S&P Midcap 400 Index, a measure of medium-sized U.S. companies' value, which is up 100% over the same stretch, or the S&P Smallcap 600 Index, a measure of small U.S. companies' value, up 118%.

Meanwhile, a gauge of European large-company stocks called the Euro Stoxx 50 Index, which you can buy in the form of an exchange-traded fund with the ironic symbol FEZ, is up a whopping 165% since January 2000.

Lags Transports and Utilities

To add insult to injury, the Dow also has been badly bested by its two sisters, the Dow Jones Transportation Average, up 73% in the 2000s, and the Dow Jones Utilities Average, up 88%.

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