What are the stocks that make up...

Factual Questions
1

… Dow Jones?
… Nasdaq?
… S&P 500?

I see the number updated in the news. I just wonder where they get it from.

2

You can buy a copy of the Wall Street Journal sometime and see them all listed.

The “Dow Jones” just refers to the Dow Jones 30 Industrial stocks. They change over time, but the WSJ lists them all as well as whole bunch of other financial news sources.

The NASDAQ is an entire exchange. The S&P 500 is 500 different stock issues.

3

You can buy a copy of the Wall Street Journal sometime and see them all listed.

The “Dow Jones” just refers to the Dow Jones 30 Industrial stocks. They change over time, but the WSJ lists them all as well as whole bunch of other financial news sources.

The NASDAQ is an entire exchange. The S&P 500 is 500 different stock issues.

4

From what I understand, GE is the only company that has been part of the Dow Jones list as long as the list has existed.

Here’s Yahoo’s listing for the DJIA: http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=@^dji

5

That is true - at least it’s the only one whose name hasn’t changed. History:

http://www.e-analytics.com/dowchang.htm

He introduced the “industrials” list in 1896 (first list and explanatory text follows the first Wall Street Journal quotes).

Microsoft and Intel were added in 1999, which meant that companies traded on the NASDAQ had broken into the list.

6

If you look at that list, the text implies there should be 12 companies listed, but the list only seems to contain 11. If you look at later lists, it appears that they have a typo - “Laclede Lead” should, in fact, be two entries, “Laclede Gas” and “National Lead”. In fact they misspelled Tennessee, also. For those of you who are curious, but don’t care to dig through the link, the original 12 Dow industrials from that article, typos corrected:

American Cotton Oil
American Sugar
American Tobacco
Chicago Gas
Distilling and Cattle Feeding
General Electric
Laclede Gas
National Lead
North American
Tennessee Coal & Iron
U.S. Leather preferred
U.S. Rubber

“Distilling and Cattle Feeding”??? A few months later he knocked them and North American off the list and added “American Spirits Manufacturing” and “U.S. Cordage preferred” anyway.

7

Another correction - GE has not been continually on the list. They were off it for nine years, and added back on again. The fate of the original 12 is given here:

http://indexes.dowjones.com/ddorigin.html