Dow Jones Average History Chart: 10,000+ Years of Market History

The Dow Jones Industrial Average: A Historical Overview

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) is a stock market index that measures the performance of 30 large, publicly owned companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and the Nasdaq Stock Market. It is one of the most widely followed stock market indices in the world, and its history can be traced back to the late 19th century.

The DJIA was created by Charles Dow and Edward Jones in 1896, and it originally consisted of 12 companies. The index has been expanded and revised over the years, and its current composition includes some of the largest and most well-known companies in the world, such as Apple, Microsoft, and The Coca-Cola Company.

The DJIA is calculated by taking the sum of the share prices of the 30 companies in the index, and then dividing that sum by a divisor that is adjusted to account for stock splits and other corporate actions. The divisor is currently 0.15206338.

The DJIA has served as a barometer of the U.S. stock market for more than a century, and it has been used by investors to track the performance of the market and to make investment decisions. The index has also been used as a benchmark for other stock market indices, and it is often used to measure the performance of mutual funds and other investment products.

Key Dates in the History of the Dow Jones Industrial Average

• 1896: The Dow Jones Industrial Average is created by Charles Dow and Edward Jones.
• 1929: The DJIA reaches its all-time high of 381.17 on September 3, 1929, just before the stock market crash that triggered the Great Depression.
• 1932: The DJIA falls to its all-time low of 41.22 on July 8, 1932, during the Great Depression.
• 1954: The DJIA surpasses its 1929 high for the first time, closing at 382.74 on January 4, 1954.
• 1987: The DJIA falls by 22.6% in a single day, known as Black Monday, on October 19, 1987.
• 1995: The DJIA surpasses the 5,000 mark for the first time, closing at 5,023.55 on November 21, 1995.
• 2008: The DJIA falls by 33.8% during the financial crisis of 2008, reaching its lowest level since 1996.
• 2013: The DJIA surpasses the 16,000 mark for the first time, closing at 16,588.28 on May 28, 2013.
• 2020: The DJIA falls by 35.5% during the COVID-19 pandemic, reaching its lowest level since 2016.
• 2022: The DJIA surpasses the 30,000 mark for the first time, closing at 30,087.26 on November 24, 2022.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average Today

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is still one of the most widely followed stock market indices in the world, and it is used by investors to track the performance of the market and to make investment decisions. The index has been relatively stable in recent years, but it remains volatile, and it can be affected by a variety of factors, including economic news, political events, and global events.

Investors should be aware of the risks involved in investing in the stock market, and they should only invest money that they can afford to lose. The DJIA is a useful tool for tracking the performance of the stock market, but it should not be used as the sole basis for making investment decisions.

Table 1: Historical High and Low Values of the Dow Jones Industrial Average

Table 2: Companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average

Table 3: Returns of the Dow Jones Industrial Average

Table 4: Correlation of the Dow Jones Industrial Average with Other Asset Classes