Interesting Facts about the Dow Jones Index2 photos

The coefficient mentioned on May 26, 1896, was related to the study of market trends. This explains the term “Dow,” but what about “Jones”? This was the name of Mr. Dow’s business partner, and together they founded the company Dow Jones & Company. Journalists would track market changes and publish their findings in the Wall Street Journal. Interestingly, the Dow Jones Index is also known as the “blue chips” index. This term comes from casinos, where blue chips represent the highest-value cards. The index covers 30 of the largest companies in the United States. The prefix “industrial” reflects historical context—many of these companies are no longer in this sector today. Initially, the index was calculated as the average price of the stocks of these companies.

At that time, the index represented the average price of stocks from 12 American industrial companies. In the current version of the index, only General Electric is remaining from those original companies. The largest percentage drop in the index occurred on “Black Monday” in 1987, when the Dow Jones Index lost 22.6%. On the first trading day after the September 11, 2001, attacks, the index fell by 7.1%.