The movie tag line: Two guys meet in a bar and decide to choose 30 large, publicly owned companies to track and use as an index for the entire stock market.
We didn’t say it was a hit movie.
Created by the former editor of the Wall Street Journal, Charles Dow and his business partner Edward Jones established the Dow 30 in 1896, and today investors all over the world refer to the Dow Jones Industrial Average, or just the “Dow,” when they want to evaluate the market after a standard trading session. The 30 companies that are tracked change on a regular basis as their stocks and their industries gain or lose in popularity.
Too bad there wasn’t an Apple in 1896.
Related or Semi-related Video
Finance: What is the Dow Jones Industria...2710 Views
finance a la shmoop- what is the Dow Jones Industrial Average? well it's just
an index. it's a basket of 30 industrial stocks hence the catchy industrial word [list of the 30 stocks involved in the Dow]
in there and it was started in 1896 by Charles Dow and Edward Jones sort of the
Coke and Pepsi of stock averages in the day .worth noting is the fact that while
the Dow average is quoted often in the press it's not something that real Wall
Street traders really rely on that much as a market place holder anymore. why?
well because the Dow comprises only 30 stocks. it isn't really a broad market [Dow Jones in the trash]
representation, and you know the way the S&P 500 is the 500 is bigger than 30. Big
Brother has way more stocks and is thus way more liquid than the relatively
blippi set of 30 stocks that the Dow offers. over time the Dow has changed as
companies were bought and/or died and or just withered and became no longer
relevant. i.e. newspaper industry. which means that this thing has gone through
more faces than Kanye West .yeah. [Kanye West faces pictured]
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