Dow Jones Industrial Average

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow (), is a stock market index tracking the stock performance of 30 large companies listed on stock exchanges in the United States. It is named after founder Charles Dow and his business associate, statistician Edward Jones. It is maintained by S&P Dow Jones Indices and its components are selected by a committee.

The index is a price-weighted index; stocks with the highest price per share have the highest weighting in the index. The value of the index is the sum of the stock prices of the companies included in the index, divided by a factor, which is approximately 0.168 as of July 2026. 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.

Because the DJIA only includes 30 components, many of which are highly correlated during periods of decline, and the fact that the components with the highest price per share have an undue weighting (Goldman Sachs has the highest weighting in the index and the index performed extremely poorly during the 2008 financial crisis due to the drop of then-component AIG), the DJIA is not considered representative of the U.S. economy and products tracking the index are not recommended as long-term investments by most financial advisors. However, in the long run, the index has performed in line with the broader S&P 500.

Products linked to the DJIA include index funds (exchange-traded funds/ETFs and mutual funds) as well as derivatives (options and futures contracts), which are available for trading in many countries with the goal of replicating the performance of the index. Also available are modified index funds; they replicate the performance of the index with modifications such as the use of covered call strategies, equal weighting, performance buffers, leverage, inclusion of only growth or value stocks, or exclusion of certain sectors, all with the goal of changing the risk/return and yield.

The ten components with the largest dividend yields are referred to as the Dogs of the Dow.