The changing of the Dow replaced $43 worth of stocks with $430 worth of stocks and, in the price-weighted index, this is a major shift of balance. Rather than over-analyze it, let's just say that it shifts the Dow to a far more consumer-spending orientation and GS pumps up the sensitivity to the banking sector. What we're taking away from, once again is the "Industrials" which, much like America, are barely a part of the Dow Jones Industrial Average anymore.
Consider the original Dow components and how much America has changed since 1896:
- American Cotton Oil Company, a predecessor company to Bestfoods, now part of Unilever.
- American Sugar Company, became Domino Sugar in 1900, now Domino Foods, Inc.
- American Tobacco Company, broken up in a 1911 antitrust action.
- Chicago Gas Company, bought by Peoples Gas Light in 1897, now an operating subsidiary of Integrys Energy Group.
- Distilling & Cattle Feeding Company, now Millennium Chemicals, formerly a division of LyondellBasell, the latter of which recently emerged from
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