History of the Dow Jones Industrial Average

It was created in 1896 by Charles Dow and Edward Jones and initially consisted of 12 industrial sector companies. Over time, it expanded to its current 30-company composition by 1928. The Dow Jones Industrial Average, also known as the DJIA or the Dow, is astock market indexthat tracks 30 large, publicly ownedblue-chipcompanies trading on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Nasdaq. Journalist Charles Dow created the index in 1896 to serve as a proxy for the overall U.S. economy. After hitting its all-time high in Jan. 2022, the Dow continued to fall as markets were impacted by inflation and the war in Ukraine. The Dow hit a low that year of 28,715.85 on Sept. 30 but steadily started to go up with the occasional dips, sitting at 35,061.21 as of the market close on July 19, 2023; not too far from its all-time high.

Biggest S&P 500 Movers on Wednesday

  • Which stocks are likely to thrive in today’s challenging market?
  • The state comptroller would have control of the reserve and any potential buying and selling of the digital assets.
  • The Dow witnessed a sharp decline in the end of November over fears of inflation and the COVID-19 pandemic, before resuming its quest to break more all-time high milestones.
  • Stocks of companies in the travel industry led the way lower as doubts continue about how much U.S. households will be able to spend on vacations.

The longest bull market in history lasted approximately 11 years, starting in March 2009 and ending in Feb. 2020. The DJIA is considerably older than the other two major U.S. stock indices, the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq Composite. The only older index still in use today is the Dow Jones Transportation Average, which Dow created in 1884 to track the movement of major rail and steamship company stock prices. It is simply a value that is calculated via the total sum of the share prices of the stocks included in the index that is divided by the Dow Divisor (more on that later). Take a look at the Dow Jones Industrial Average over the course of its history and you also have a reliable history of the U.S. stock market.

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It then enters a period of volatility and drops to 8,920.70 after markets open following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The recession ends in November 2002 after a period of war-related uncertainty. The Dow’s most volatile period in recent history took place during the Great Recession of 2007–2008. On Oct. 9, 2007, the Dow hit a pre-recession high, closing at 14,164.53 despite growing concerns around the subprime mortgage crisis. Leading up to the Great Recession, banks had offered easy home loans to virtually everyone, including those with bad credit. Falling home prices throughout 2007 prompted defaults on subprime mortgages.

What is the Dow Jones Industrial Average?

Shares of UnitedHealth closed down 5.1% after reports that the company made secret payments to nursing homes to reduce hospital transfers. The healthcare company has been under fire for months, including the aftermath of the murder of its insurance arm’s CEO. The key long bond, which hasn’t settled above 5% since October 2023, closed at 5.09%, up 12 basis points for the day.

The records set in the fall were the first ones since the Dow reached 26,616.71 on Jan. 26, 2018. After hitting the Jan. 26 peak, the Dow went into free fall, dropping 4% the next week. On Feb. 8, it entered a market correction when it fell 1,032.89 points to 23,860.46. The digital currency had slumped in April to around $76,000 as investors fled risky assets such as cryptocurrencies and stocks amid concerns about tariffs and their potential impact on the economic outlook. Concerns about global trade tensions have subsided, at least for now, while investors remain hopeful that the Trump administration and crypto-supportive lawmakers will implement policies that benefit the asset class. With Wednesday’s gains, CoreWeave’s stock has nearly tripled in value since the company went public in March.

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While analysts mostly use other indices in their calculations, many people opine on the state of the economy and a good legacy fx review number of them consult or cite the Dow without every understanding what the Dow is or why it matters. When anyone reports the value of the Dow, they just state the price, but that is not fair. There are only 30 stocks included in the index – compared to more than 5,300 common stocks between the NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

Lowe’s (LOW) shares declined 1.7% after the home-improvement retailer reported first-quarter profit that was better than analysts expected and affirmed its full-year outlook. Palo Alto Networks (PANW) shares were down nearly 7%, leading decliners on the Nasdaq, even as the cybersecurity provider reported better-than-expected quarterly results. Higher bond yields can also entice investors and pull them away from other assets, putting pressure on the stock market.

Titan helps you take advantage of both of these strategies by providing you with a diversified portfolio that enables healthy investing habits. Learn more about how to invest despite the market’s dips by downloading Titan’s app today. For starters, the Dow Jones we know is not a person — but you already knew that. Named for its two founders, the Dow Jones is a stock market index, just like the or the Nasdaq.

The auction’s highest yield rose to nearly 5.05% from 4.81% a month ago, while the bid-to-cover ratio, a common measure of demand, fell to 2.46 from 2.63. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond surged as high as 5.1%, its highest level since November 2023, on Wednesday manual trade after a surprisingly weak 20-year Treasury note auction. The 10-year Treasury yield, which influences interest rates on all kinds of consumer and commercial loans, climbed to about 4.61%, its highest level since February. CoreWeave (CRWV) shares soared Wednesday after the company announced an upsized $2 billion debt offering. The U.S. dollar index, which measures the performance of the dollar against a basket of foreign currencies, was down 0.5% at 99.60 trading near its lowest levels of the month. While the S&P 500 has wavered this week, it is up 17% from its lowest point this year after staging a sharp rebound in the past month.

Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)

Perhaps the most infamous trough was during the Great Depression, in which the Dow lost about 90% of its value over three years. It hit a low of 41.22 in 1932 (about 908 points, inflation-adjusted). In the autumn, it began to consistently close above 35,000 points, and by the last week in December 2021, it surpassed 36,000 points.

The stock soared to the tune of a hardly believable 1007% after the company announced pleasing results from the mid-stage testing of its breast cancer drug ARX788. Many investors—both institutional and individual—had borrowed or leveraged heavily to buy stocks, and the crash that began on Black Thursday wiped them out financially, leading to widespread bank failures. That, in turn, became the catalyst that sent the United States into the Great Depression of the 1930s.

  • Dow stocks are great for dividend income and stability, less so for growth and outsized market returns.
  • Google I/O underscored the capabilities of the tech giant’s Gemini large language model, Bank of America said.
  • Despite all time highs early in the year, six of the 20 worst-one day point losses for the Dow occurred in 2022.

The Dow Jones reached its highest level of 29,373 on January 17, 2020. In this article, we are going to explain “the Dow Jones” because, after all, you should never invest in a business that you don’t understand. We would add that you also shouldn’t follow the performance of an index that you don’t comprehend. Yet, few investors have a strong understanding of what the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) actually is (like that it is the same thing as “the Dow”) or how it began. how to become a successful forex trader Shares of Intel, IBM and Home Depot helped drive the record-setting rally.

Bitcoin was up 1.6% after the closing bell on Wall Street, near $107,040 at last check, after briefly topping $109,000 for a fresh record high. The Texas House of Representatives approved a state bitcoin reserve bill, sending the crypto-related legislation to the governor’s desk for a likely signature. The bill allows Texas to stockpile bitcoin and potentially other cryptocurrencies. The state comptroller would have control of the reserve and any potential buying and selling of the digital assets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was off 1.7%, losing 704 points to trade near 41,973 in the mid-afternoon, while the broad S&P 500 Index lost 1.2%, or 76 points, near 5,865.

Further, when all the companies in the Dow are growing, it could be that the economy is strong. Today’s Dow includes stocks from a variety of sectors, including technology, finance, and consumer goods. The value of the index was originally calculated as the total of the stocks divided by 12 – an average of the stock prices of those companies on the list. If it is a mixed bag with some companies doing well and others slipping a little, the DJIA pretty well remains level. The assumption is that smaller companies and those not included in the Dow will experience similar stock movements.

Previously, the Dow had fallen from 11,723 in January 2000 to 9,389 in March 2001, dropping 20% (from 20,520 to 16,434 points, inflation-adjusted). The bout of inflation that followed the COVID-19 pandemic led to another sharp sell-off in 2022. Between Jan. 7, 2022, and Sept. 30, 2022, the Dow declined about 21% from 36,231.66 to 28,725.51.


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