The Dow Jones Industrial Average: Then and Now

Written by nickel - 5 Comments

The other day I ran across a list of the original 30 components of the Dow Jones Industrial Average. However, the DJIA didn’t expand to 30 companies until 1928, 32 years after its inception. So how many components did it have at the outset? Twelve. And here they are…

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

Comparing that to the current list of 30 companies (below) reveals a lot about how much this country has changed over the last 111 years. We’ve gone from a largely industrial economy to a very technologically driven and finance-centric economy.

3M Corp.
Alcoa, Inc.
Altria Group, Inc.
American Express Co.
American International Group
AT&T, Inc.
Boeing Corp.
Caterpillar, Inc.
Citigroup, Inc.
Coca-Cola Co.
DuPont
Exxon Mobil Corp.
General Electric Co.
General Motors Corp.
Hewlett-Packard Co.
Home Depot, Inc.
Honeywell International, Inc.
Intel Corp.
International Business Machines
Johnson & Johnson
J.P. Morgan Chase & Co.
McDonald’s Corp.
Merck & Company, Inc.
Microsoft Corp.
Pfizer Inc.
Procter & Gamble Co.
United Technologies
Verizon Co.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
Walt Disney Co.

Published on August 9th, 2007 - 5 Comments
Filed under: Saving & Investing
email this article - digg this - stumble it - save to del.icio.us

Did you find this article useful? If so, please sign up to receive e-mail updates:

Comments (scroll down to add your own):

And there’s only one company on both lists. Crazy.
Comment by junger — Aug 9th 2007 @ 1:50 pm
Umm and GE is so different back in history than current.

It’s very interesting to look at our our country has grown throw the Dow 30 good find!
Comment by MoneyNing — Aug 9th 2007 @ 2:11 pm
I find this very interesting as well. The wikipedia entry for the DJIA shows that most of the original 12 can be traced to an existing company.
Comment by Scott — Aug 9th 2007 @ 2:22 pm
Can I buy some GE at those prices?
Comment by RateLadder — Aug 10th 2007 @ 12:49 am