It came and went in a flash each time, a number on a board for mere seconds, but its symbolic power couldn't be dismissed.

The Dow Jones industrial average, powered higher all year by optimism that the economic recovery is finally for real, crossed 13,000 on Tuesday for the first time since May 2008.

The last time the Dow was there, unemployment was 5.4 percent, and Lehman Brothers was a solvent investment bank.

The milestone Tuesday first came about two hours into the trading day, and again twice in the afternoon, but it couldn't hold its gains. It finished up 15.82 points at 12,965.69.

Still, Wall Street took note of the marker.

It was just last summer that the Dow unburdened itself of 2,000 points in three terrifying weeks. Standard & Poor's downgraded the United States' credit rating, Washington was fighting over the federal borrowing limit, and the European debt crisis was raging.

A second recession was a real fear. But the economy grew faster every quarter last year, and gains in the job market have been impressive, including 243,000 jobs added in January alone.

"Essentially over the last couple of months you've taken the two biggest fears off the table, that Europe is going to melt down and that we're going to have another recession here," said Scott Brown, chief economist for Raymond James.

The tumult of last summer and fall left the Dow as low as 10,655. It closed Tuesday 22 percent above that low. The Dow is 1,199 points from an all-time high, a 9 percent rally from here.

A long-awaited bailout to help Greece prevent a potentially catastrophic default, announced before dawn in Europe after 12 hours of talks, helped the Dow clear 13,000. After months in which talks crawled along and vague headlines yanked the market up and down, the conclusion was almost anticlimactic because the markets were already expecting an agreement.

But investors noted that Greece remains in a deep recession. Its bond investors will take a 53.5 percent loss on the face value of their bonds, which could discourage future investment.

In the U.S., investors were cheered early by earnings from Home Depot, watched closely as a barometer of American spending on homes, and Macy's. Wal-Mart missed Wall Street expectations, and its stock lost 4 percent, worst among the 30 stocks in the Dow.

The Dow last closed above 13,000 on May 19, 2008. The next day, it crossed under 13,000, not to return for almost four years. It fell as low as 6,547 on March 9, 2009. A reading of 13,094 would double that.

Dan McMahon, director of equity trading at Raymond James, called the 13,000 mark "just a big round number" as a matter of market fundamentals. But he added: "Psychologically, it matters."

The milestone could motivate cautious investors to pump more money back into the stock market. The yield on the government's benchmark 10-year Treasury note rose to 2.06 percent from 2.01 percent Friday, a sign that fewer investors wanted the bonds and were instead willing to buy riskier stocks.

"You need notches along the way to measure things," and Dow 13,000 is as good as any, said John Manley, chief equity strategist for Wells Fargo's funds group.