Dow Jones Industrial Average
The Dow is the oldest widely-followed US index — just 30 large, established "blue-chip" companies. It is more a historical bellwether than a complete market gauge.
How the Dow Jones Industrial Average is built
Unusually, the Dow is price-weighted: a stock’s influence depends on its share price, not its company size, so a high-priced stock can outweigh a much larger company.
Methodology: official index-provider documentation ↗
What to check before using the Dow Jones Industrial Average as a benchmark
- With only 30 constituents, it is a selective blue-chip indicator rather than a broad market portfolio.
- Price weighting means a higher-priced share can have more index influence than a larger company with a lower share price.
- Stock splits and constituent changes require divisor adjustments to preserve continuity of the index level.
Biggest companies in the Dow Jones Industrial Average
via DIA · as of July 2026Top holdings shown via the tracking ETF DIA (membership only, no weights). Source: stockanalysis.com.
How to invest in the Dow Jones Industrial Average
You can’t buy an index directly — you buy a fund that tracks it. The most common way to follow the Dow Jones Industrial Average is the DIA ETF. Because it’s price weighted, remember the largest holdings drive most of the moves — if you already own those names, you may be more concentrated than the broad label suggests.
Other major indexes
Frequently asked about the Dow Jones Industrial Average
What does the Dow Jones Industrial Average measure?
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is a 30-stock, price-weighted index of large US companies from a range of sectors. It is a longstanding market indicator, not a complete US-market measure.
Why is the Dow different from the S&P 500?
The Dow holds 30 stocks and is price-weighted. The S&P 500 holds roughly 500 companies and uses float-adjusted market-cap weighting, so the two indexes can respond differently to the same market move.
Can investors buy the Dow directly?
No. Investors cannot buy an index itself, but may use a fund designed to track it, such as DIA, after considering the fund’s own costs and structure.
Educational overview of an index and its membership — not investment advice, and not a recommendation to buy or sell any index fund or company. Holdings are a periodic snapshot and change over time.