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NEW YORK — It took 5½ years, but the Dow on Tuesday finally crossed over its record closing high of 14,164.53 set in October of 2007.

Now what?

For investors, the question is pretty much the same as the one posed by English punk rock band The Clash in 1981 in its popular tune Should I Stay or Should I Go .

Given that dilemma, we’ll let investors make up their own minds. For a look at the bullish call, here are five reasons to buy now:

1. Bull has gas left in tank. History says there’s more money to be made. The bull, which began in March 2009, is just entering its fourth and final stage, Laszlo Birinyi, founder and president of investment research firm Birinyi Associates, said in his 2013 preview. And the last phase, which he dubs the exuberance stage, historically has been a wildly profitable one for investors, with average gains of 38.7% in bulls since 1962. The first stage is reluctance (average gains of 49.4%), followed by consolidation (+6.4%), acceptance (+18.8%) and finally exuberance. Our view, Birinyi wrote, is that we are in the fourth leg of a bull market which will extend through most of 2013.

2. No signs of recession ahead. Economic contractions are often the cause of stocks heading lower. But incoming economic data are not indicating that a recession is imminent, says James Stack, editor of InvesTech Research newsletter. He points to recent surveys that showed that both manufacturing and the services portion of the economy topped analysts’ expectations in February and are at levels that suggest growth not contraction. An improving jobs market and a recovery in the housing market are also big economic pluses.

USA TODAYs Matt Krantz talks about todays record setting day on Wall Street. The Dow Jones industrial average jumped to an all-time high.

4. Shift from bonds to stocks underway. Wall Street is dubbing it the Great Rotation. In short, that catchy phrase describes an investor mind-set shift from playing it safe to taking risks again. And the asset allocation shift is already underway, according to Michael Hartnett, chief investment strategist at BofA Merrill Lynch. Want proof? In the seven weeks ended Feb. 20, net inflows to stock mutual funds totaled $54.2 billion. January marked the first month of positive cash flows for stock funds in a year, according to ICI data.