Dow Jones company, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, presented its first average of U.S. stocks on 3 July 1884. Twelve years later, the editors picked 12 stocks that were intended to serve as a proxy for the market as a whole. The index is reassessed every few years to ensure that the average reflects the “blue-chip” sector of the market.
The original Dow Jones Industrial Average, or DJIA consisted of 12 stocks, and the list gives a great insight into the nature of the economy at the time:
American Cotton Oil
American Sugar
American Tobacco
Chicago Gas
Distilling and Cattle Feeding
General Electric
Laclede Gas
National Lead
Tennessee Coal & Iron
North American
U.S. Leather
U.S. Rubber
In 1916 the number of stocks making up the DJIA was increased to 20. The 30-stock average, which is the current number of Dow components, made its debut in 1928. General Electric is the only original member of the index that is also a current member, although it dropped out and was reinstanted twice between 1898 to 1907.
Here is a list of the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average, as of 1 January 2004:
Alcoa
Altria Group
American Express
AT&T
Boeing
Caterpillar
Citigroup
Coca-Cola
Disney
DuPont
Eastman Kodak
ExxonMobil
General Electric
General Motors
Hewlett-Packard
Home Depot
Honeywell
Intel
IBM
International Paper
Johnson & Johnson
J.P. Morgan Chase
McDonald’s
Merck
Microsoft
3M
Procter & Gamble
SBC Communications
United Technologies
Wal-Mart