Where To Search The Dow Stock Market Today?

Whether you are involved in buying stocks yourself or not, it is likely that you have at least heard the term 'Dow Jones'. Whenever there is a business report somewhere, it talks about how the Dow is doing, mentioning the standing of the 'Dow Jones Industrial Average'. And, although you may not quite understand what it means, you will probably have at least a basic grasp of the concept that it has quite a lot to do with the state of our economy. This leads to the question of where to search the Dow stock market today, and what the information tells you when you do find it. The Dow Jones was established by Charles Dow in 1896 and is the trading industry's best known icon. So what does it mean?

Where To Search The Dow Stock Market Today?

Very simply put, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is an index used on the stock market, giving people a very quick overview of the overall performance of the stock market on a specific day. It doesn't give any specific details in terms of the exact value of individual stocks, for instance. Rather, it tells people who look at it what the general trend of the overall stock market is.

A lot of people think that understanding the Dow calculation is virtually impossible, but in reality it is actually quite simple. The value of the stock of 30 very large companies are simply added up, and this enables financial experts to derive a daily average. This is a scaled calculation that uses a divisor, and it changes regularly.

Originally, the Dow Jones Industrial Average didn't include 30 large companies. Rather, it only consisted of 12 businesses. Out of these original 12, only one is still used in the Dow Jones reports of today, which is General Electric. So when you learn where to search the Dow stock market today, you actually get a little glimpse into the past as well. As the economy grew and contracted over the past 100 years, more companies were added to the stock in a gradual way, and some were removed because the companies no longer exist.

There is a lot of criticism of the Dow Jones as well. Some market analysts feel it does not paint a proper picture because, by only including 30 large companies, it doesn't provide a full representation of overall market performance. Furthermore, trading on all 30 of the stocks that are included in the Dow Jones is difficult because the 30 companies don't actually open every morning at the exact same time. Hence, the daily average is instantly skewed. While both criticisms are valid, the reality is also that, over the years, the Dow Jones Industrial Average has always been able to remain consistent in performance, parallel to the overall US stock market. This is why, besides its very valid criticisms, the Dow Jones remains a very popular index that is used by traders on the stock market the world over.