The Dow Jones Industrial Average (NYSE: DJI, also called the DJIA, Dow 30, INDP, or informally the Dow Jones or The Dow) is one of several stock market indices. The Dow was created by Charles Dow, a nineteenth-century Wall Street Journal editor and Dow Jones & Company co-founder . The Dow is an index that shows how certain select stocks have traded. Charles Dow compiled the index to gauge the performance of the industrial sector of the American stock market. The Dow is the second-oldest U.S. market index, after the Dow Jones Transportation Average, which Dow also created.

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Helpful Links …
Historical components of the DJIA on Wikipedia …