Dow Jones Industrial Average

Historical logarithmic graph of the DJIA from 1896 to 2018
Foundation	February 16, 1885; 139 years ago (1885-02-16) (as DJA)[1] May 26, 1896 (1896-05-26) (as DJIA)[2]
Operator	S&P Dow Jones Indices
Exchanges	New York Stock Exchange Nasdaq
Trading symbol	^DJI $INDU .DJI DJIA
Constituents	30
Type	Large cap
Market cap	US$12.0 trillion (as of December 29, 2023[update])[3]
Weighting method	Price-weighted index
Website	us.spindices.com/indices/equity/dow-jones-industrial-average

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow (/ˈdaʊ/), 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 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 stock indices, which use market capitalization. Furthermore, the DJIA does not use a weighted arithmetic mean.^[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 the Dow Jones & Company, and named after him and his business associate, statistician Edward Jones.

The index is maintained by S&P Dow Jones Indices, an entity majority-owned by S&P Global. Its components are selected by a committee. The ten components with the largest dividend yields are commonly referred to as the Dogs of the Dow. As with all stock prices, the prices of the constituent stocks and consequently the value of the index itself are affected by the performance of the respective companies as well as macroeconomic factors.

Components

As of February 26, 2024,^[update] the Dow Jones Industrial Average consists of the following companies, with a weighting as shown:^[8]

Former components

As of February 26, 2024, the components of the DJIA have changed 58 times since its beginning on May 26, 1896. General Electric had the longest continuous presence on the index, beginning in the original index in 1896 and ending in 2018. Changes to the index since 1991 are as follows:

• On May 6, 1991, Caterpillar Inc., J.P. Morgan & Co., and The Walt Disney Company replaced American Can, Navistar, and U.S. Steel.^[9]
• On March 17, 1997, Travelers Inc., Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, and Walmart replaced Westinghouse Electric, Texaco, Bethlehem Steel, and F. W. Woolworth Company.^[10]
• On November 1, 1999, Microsoft, Intel, SBC Communications, and Home Depot replaced Goodyear Tire, Sears Roebuck, Union Carbide, and Chevron Corporation.^[11] Intel and Microsoft became the first and second companies traded on the Nasdaq to be part of the Dow.^[11]
• On April 8, 2004, American International Group, Pfizer, and Verizon Communications replaced AT&T Corporation, Kodak, and International Paper.^[12]
• On February 19, 2008, Chevron Corporation and Bank of America replaced Altria Group and Honeywell. Chevron was previously a Dow component from July 18, 1930, to November 1, 1999. During Chevron's absence, its split-adjusted price per share went from $44 to $85, while the price of petroleum rose from $24 to $100 per barrel.^[13]
• On September 22, 2008, Kraft Foods Inc. replaced American International Group (AIG) in the index.^[14][15]
• On June 8, 2009, The Travelers Companies and Cisco Systems replaced Motors Liquidation Company (formerly General Motors) and Citigroup. Cisco became the third company traded on the NASDAQ to be part of the Dow.^[16]
• On September 24, 2012, UnitedHealth Group replaced Kraft Foods Inc. following Kraft's split into Mondelez International and Kraft Foods.^[17][18]
• On September 20, 2013, Goldman Sachs, Nike, Inc., and Visa Inc. replaced Alcoa, Bank of America, and Hewlett-Packard. Visa replaced Hewlett-Packard because of the split into HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise.^[19][20][21]
• On March 19, 2015, Apple Inc. replaced AT&T, which had been a component of the DJIA since November 1916.^[22][23] Apple became the fourth company traded on the NASDAQ to be part of the Dow.
• On September 1, 2017, DowDuPont replaced DuPont. DowDuPont was formed by the merger of Dow Chemical Company with DuPont.^[24]
• On June 26, 2018, Walgreens Boots Alliance replaced General Electric, which had been a component of the DJIA since November 1907, after being part of the inaugural index in May 1896 and much of the 1896 to 1907 period.^[25][26][27]
• On April 2, 2019, Dow Inc. replaced DowDuPont. Dow, Inc. is a spin-off of DowDuPont, itself a merger of Dow Chemical Company and DuPont.^[28][29][30]
• On April 6, 2020, Raytheon Technologies replaced United Technologies. Raytheon is the name of the combination of United Technologies and the Raytheon Company, which merged as of April 3, 2020. The newly combined conglomerate does not include previous subsidiaries Carrier Global or Otis Worldwide.^[31]
• On August 31, 2020, Amgen, Honeywell, and Salesforce.com replaced ExxonMobil, Pfizer, and Raytheon Technologies.^[32]
• On February 26, 2024, Amazon replaced Walgreens Boots Alliance.^[33]

Investment methods

Investing in the DJIA is possible via index funds as well as via derivatives such as option contracts and futures contracts.

Mutual and exchange-traded funds

Index funds, including mutual funds and exchange-traded funds (ETF) can replicate, before fees and expenses, the performance of the index by holding the same stocks as the index in the same proportions. An ETF that replicates the performance of the index is issued by State Street Corporation (NYSE Arca: DIA).^[34]

ProShares offers leveraged ETFs that attempt to produce three times the daily result of either investing in (NYSE Arca: UDOW) or shorting (NYSE Arca: SDOW) the Dow Jones Industrial Average.^[35]

Futures contracts

In the derivatives market, the CME Group through its subsidiaries the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) and the Chicago Board of Trade (CBOT), issues Futures Contracts; the E-mini Dow ($5) Futures (YM), which track the average and trade on their exchange floors respectively. Trading is typically carried out in an open outcry auction, or over an electronic network such as CME's Globex platform.

Options contracts

The Chicago Board Options Exchange (CBOE) issues option contracts on the Dow through the root symbol DJX. Options on various Dow-underlying ETFs are also available for trading.^[36]

Annual returns

The following table shows the annual development of the Dow Jones Index, which was calculated back to 1896.^[37][38]