With the recent events, you may be wondering what wars have to do with the stock market.  Well, they are two totally different things, but wars are a big issue when you are thinking of making money.  The stock market reacts differently to different things.  Take World War 1 for example.  The stock market closed for 4 months after the war started!  When it finally reopened, the Dow Jones industrial average was down 30 percent.  Two years later in1915 it was back up to 80 percent.  The U.S. went back into war in 1917.  The market was already getting better in late 1918 when the war ended.  During Pearl Harbor the market wasn't the best place to make money. Wars are not the only thing that effects the stock market.  The day of  President Kennedy's assassination, the Dow was down 3 percent.  Six months later it was back up to 12 percent as if nothing happened.  The companies that do the best during wars and other tragic events are companies that sell military stuff like weapons, gun powder, guns and things like that.  I'm not saying that all of the other companies do poorly during wars, you just never know.