Opinion and Commentary By Donna Westfall – February 6, 2026 What is the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA)? It's an index. In 1896, journalist Charles Dow and his business partner, statistician Edward Jones developed this tool to track the health of the American economy. Initially, they chose 12 industrial stocks. What you may not know is that Charles Dow also co-founded the Wall Street Journal. American Cotton Oil, American Sugar, American Tobacco, Chicago Gas, Distilling & Cattle Feeding, General Electric, Laclede Gas, National Lead, North American Company, Tennessee Coal and Iron, U.S. Leather, and U.S. Rubber None of those companies are on the list anymore, General Electric being the last one removed in 2018 replaced by Walgreens Boots Alliance. In 2024, Amazon replaced Walgreens Boots Alliance. Also, the list expanded from 12 to 30. The current 30 companies on the list as of May 29, 2025: 3M, American Express, Amgen, Amazon, Apple, Boeing, Caterpillar, Chevron, Cisco, Coca-Cola, DIsney, Goldman-Sachs, Home Depot, Honeywell, IBM, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, McDonalds, Merck, Microsoft, Nike, Nvidia, Proctor & Gamble, Salesforce, Sherwin-Williams, Travelers Company Inc, United Health Group, Verizon, VISA and Walmart. The DJIA is computed as the sum of the prices of all thirty stocks divided by a divisor, the Dow Divisor. While the DJIA has gone up and down dramatically over it's 129 year history, in January 2024 it crossed 38,000. A month later it surpassed 39,000 and then in May, it surpassed 40,000. Today, the index crossed 50,000 for the first time ever. Trump says ‘CONGRATULATIONS AMERICA!’ as Dow hits 50,000.