Key Economic Indicators
Dow Jones Industrial Average
The Dow Jones Industrial Average is the most-quoted market indicator in newspapers, on TV and on the Internet. The Dow Jones Industrial Averages is maintained and reviewed by editors of The Wall Street Journal. The Dow Jones average is unique in that it is price weighted rather than market capitalization weighted. Its component weightings are therefore affected only by changes in the stocks' prices, in contrast with other indexes' weightings that are affected by both price changes and changes in the number of shares outstanding.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average soared from roughly 4,000 in 1995 to more than 11,900 in May of 2001. From 1990 to September 1991, the Dow Jones Industrial Average slowly fell to roughly 10,400, but plummeted to 8,300 in the two months following the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Following a brief growth period, the Dow Jones has continued its downward spiral due to declining investor and consumer confidence and a number of accounting scandals and high profile bankruptcies (e.g., WorldCom, Enron, Global Crossings, K-Mart, Tyco and Adelphia).
