If you read my stuff, you know that I pooh-pooh the Dow Jones Industrial Average as a measurement of how the U.S. stock markets are performing.

It is just a popular index and over the past decades has come to represent the “Market.”

The reason I don’t like it is that there are only 30 stocks in the index versus more than 5000 that are traded. Normally it just doesn’t tell the story.

I’ve always like the Standard and Poor’s 500 stock index because in many cases pension investment managers like to use it as the measuring stick.

But in my view a problem has come up. You may have heard of Apple Computer. It is one of the stocks in the S&P index.

Apple’s stock price has appreciated so much in recent months, about 70 percent since the middle of June 2011, and since the S&P is a “weighted” index, Apple now makes up almost 5 percent of the index.

Therefore that one stock has a disproportionate amount of influence on that index.

Generally one could say that if Apple does well then maybe the index does better than it really should. Same thing on the downside.

So now I’ve decided to use the Wilshire 5000 as my guidepost because the Wilshire is an index of most stocks traded and in my view gives us a better idea of what is going on.

I’ll still use the other indexes but the Wilshire is now my baby. Now, don’t you feel better?

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You already know that the markets are up around 10 percent year to date. As I write this on April 24, the Wilshire 5000 is up 9.4 percent. That, my friends, is a very nice number.

You may remember that we started off pretty well last year and ended up even for the year. As a matter of fact the markets are only up about 3 percent over the past year.

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Something interesting is about to happen. Beginning later this year many investments are going to have different 10-year numbers.

You know how some investments show you their record, and it is normally 3-5-10 years and since inception. Well, instead of measuring that bad period for a couple of years before 2002 and then forward 10 years, the measurements now begin in 2002 and move forward for 10 years.

The numbers are going to change.

By the way, and this is a personal opinion, I rarely look at 10-year numbers anymore. When I look at what an investment manager has done, I go back three and five years. In my view, this is a whole different investment world we live now than it was 10 years ago.

Right now is a good time to do some reviewing with your adviser or with yourself. You’ve perhaps made some money or at least gotten some back over the past few years and now is the time to take a look at where you are.

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Let’s take a look at some of the foreign and some of the commodity markets.

Foreign markets in the Asia/Pacific Rim appear to be performing the best so far. Hong Kong, India, Japan and Singapore are all up more than 10 percent. In Europe, Spain, not surprisingly, is down more than 20 percent.

Looking at our neighbors, Mexico is up about 5 percent, and Canada is just about even.

Most of the markets around the world, including ours, have weakened a little since the end of the first quarter.

Gold and oil are both up about 4 percent year-to-date. Natural gas is down almost 33 percent. Overall commodities have cheapened up a little and that is good for consumers.

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The wife is on me about getting into shape. I told her that I was on my way.

“My workout joint has a new machine, but I could only use it for half an hour because I started to feel sick.

“It’s great though. It has everything: Kit Kats, Mars Bars, Snickers, Potato Crisps, the lot.”

She doesn’t think I’m funny.

Howie Pentony is a Saxonburg client portfolio manager.