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The Dow just did something it hasn't done in 58 years

The Dow logs ultra-rare winning streak
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The Dow logs ultra-rare winning streak

The Dow on Tuesday snapped an ultra-rare streak of wins.

The Dow Jones industrial average climbed for 10 straight days, through Monday, for its second winning streak of 10 days or longer this year (after its 12-day win streak in February). That means that 2017 already marks the first year in which the Dow has had two winning streaks of 10 sessions or longer since 1959.

On Tuesday after President Trump issued a warning to North Korea regarding the country's nuclear program, the Dow gave back its mild gains, and closed the day 33 points lower.

In early Tuesday trading, the Dow hit a new record high of 22,167.

Eddy Elfenbein, portfolio manager at AdvisorShares, called the historic string of winning sessions "pretty impressive," but added that "these are actually pretty baby steps as far as the up days for the Dow. So in aggregate, we're not talking about a rip-roaring rally; it's just that they've all been consecutive."

In the 10 sessions through Monday's close, the Dow rose by 2.8 percent.

Elfenbein added Monday on CNBC's "Trading Nation" that because the Dow weights its components by share price, the performance of the index is "really not reflective of what the broader market is doing."

A good example of this is Goldman Sachs, Elfenbein pointed out. The stock, which has gained in 8 of the last 11 sessions, is the second-highest priced name in the index, "and that's what's pushing up the Dow each day." This despite the fact that Goldman is the fifth-smallest stock in the index by market value.

Still, the historical Dow stat does further burnish the confidence of some who are motivated by momentum.

"I see a bull market. I think 10 up days ... that's consistent with what you see in a bull market," Ari Wald, head of technical analysis at Oppenheimer, said Monday on "Trading Nation." "There's not a contrarian call to make here; this is a trend-following call. I think the key point is that this is an established uptrend, it's a healthy uptrend and we think it should continue."

Wald says that the market's breadth, or its strength gauged by the number of components advancing against the number of components declining, is strong. The percentage of index components in an uptrend above their 200-day average has risen to 90 percent, Wald pointed out, as the index has rallied in recent sessions.

"Typically, rallies with a lot of stocks participating tend to be the rallies that continue; that's what we have here," the technical analyst said.