Dow Jones

About The Dow Jones Industrial Average

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is probably the most recognisable stock market index there is worldwide. It was created by Wall Street Journal editor and Dow Jones & Company co-founder Charles Dow. Dow compiled the index as a way to gauge the performance of the industrial component of America's stock markets.

It is the oldest continuing U.S. market index, aside from the Dow Jones Transportation Average, which Dow also created.

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The DJIA consists of 30 large, frequently traded stocks, this provides an important feature of the Industrial Average: timeliness. At any moment during the trading day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is based on very recent transactions. This isn't always true with indexes that contain less-frequently traded stocks.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a hot favourite for daytrading due to its wild intraday swings. Trading the "Mini Dow Jones" or "YM" futures contracts with the Chicago Board of Trade sems to be the standard way to profit (or lose) against the price of the Index.

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