Many people don't realize it, but "the Dow" (short for Dow Jones Industrial Average) is merely an average based on the stock prices of 30 companies. That's right -- out of thousands and thousands of existing companies, just 30 make up the Dow.
Here's the current list.
- 3M (NYSE:MMM)
- Alcoa (NYSE:AA)
- Altria Group (NYSE:MO)
- American Express (NYSE:AXP)
- American International Group (NYSE:AIG)
- Boeing (NYSE:BA)
- Caterpillar (NYSE:CAT)
- Citigroup (NYSE:C)
- Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO)
- Disney (NYSE:DIS)
- DuPont (NYSE:DD)
- ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM)
- General Electric (NYSE:GE)
- General Motors (NYSE:GM)
- Hewlett-Packard (NYSE:HPQ)
- Home Depot (NYSE:HD)
- Honeywell (NYSE:HON)
- IBM (NYSE:IBM)
- Intel (NASDAQ:INTC)
- John son & John son (NYSE:JNJ)
- J.P. Morgan Chase (NYSE:JPM)
- McDonald's (NYSE:MCD)
- Merck (NYSE:MRK)
- Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT)
- Pfizer (NYSE:PFE)
- Procter & Gamble (NYSE:PG)
- SBC Communications (NYSE:SBC)
- United Technologies (NYSE:UTX)
- Verizon (NYSE:VZ)
- Wal-Mart (NYSE:WMT)
The list could change at any time, but it doesn't change too often. It may remain this way for years.
You can invest in mutual funds or exchange-traded funds that are based on many different indexes, such as the Dow. Learn more in our ETF Center and our Mutual Funds area, and zero in on our index fund information there. You can learn more about investing in stocks in our Investing Basics area.
Several of the Dow stocks have been recommended by our suite of investment newsletters: J.P. Morgan Chase and Merck by Income Investor; SBC by Stock Advisor; and 3M, Coca-Cola, Home Depot, Microsoft, and Pfizer by Inside Value. If you'd like to receive several promising stock ideas delivered via email each month, learn more about our newsletters, which we offer along with some free research reports. The newsletters' performance may surprise you.
