Dow Jones Industrial Average

submited by

Style Pass

2024-11-01 22:30:04

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow (/ˈ d aʊ / ), is a stock market index of 30 prominent companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States.

The DJIA is one of the oldest and most commonly followed equity indexes. Many professionals[who? ] consider it to be an inadequate representation of the overall U.S. stock market compared to a broader market index such as the S&P 500. The DJIA includes only 30 large companies. It is price-weighted, unlike other common indexes such as the Nasdaq Composite or S&P 500, which use market capitalization.[ 4] [ 5] [ 6] [ 7]

The value of the index can also be calculated as the sum of the stock prices of the companies included in the index, divided by a factor, which is approximately 0.152 as of April 2024[update]. The factor is changed whenever a constituent company undergoes a stock split so that the value of the index is unaffected by the stock split.

First calculated on May 26, 1896,[ 2] the index is the second-oldest among U.S. market indices, after the Dow Jones Transportation Average. It was created by Charles Dow, co-founder of both The Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones & Company, and named after him and his business associate, statistician Edward Jones.