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Kai Ryssdal: A year ago today, Wall Street hit its Great Recession lows, so far we should add out of a sense of caution. The Dow closed at 6547. Retirement and savings accounts were right down there beside it. Today, the Dow is about 4,000 points higher and, mostly, climbing.

Marketplace's Jeremy Hobson reports from New York.

JEREMY HOBSON: In the last year, the Dow is up 61 percent. Globally, stocks are up 73 percent.

If that surprises you, Kevin Mahn says you're not alone. He manages investments at Hennion and Walsh.

KEVIN MAHN: I think it'd be hard to find many individual investors who had a 73 percent gain in their IRAs, most likely because you know when markets go down, investors tend to get fearful, when they get fearful they tend to sell.

And miss the rebound.

Fred Fraenkel has a word for that rebound: typical. He's chairman of investment policy at Beacon Trust Company.

FRED FRAENKEL: You had a business cycle recovery that from a very devastating recession was pretty normal. It was led by the rebuilding of inventories. It was joined by a productivity pop that pretty much always happens at the start of a business cycle.

And he says it'll be followed by a bottoming out in employment and more market growth.

Fraenkel forecasts a full recovery to pre-crash levels by 2012.

In New York, I'm Jeremy Hobson for Marketplace.