Investment Watch

L.A. Times Archives

May 26, 1996 12 AM PT

Happy Birthday, DJIA. The Dow Jones industrial average turns 100 years old today, and one wonders if Dow Jones & Co. co-founder Charles H. Dow, left, had any idea that his modest proposal for a stock market index would become the very symbol of American capitalism. The DJIA’s first incarnation on May 26, 1896, was a 12-stock index that included such now long-gone stocks as American Cotton Oil and Distilling & Cattle Feeding. The modern 30-stock Dow first appeared on Oct. 1, 1928, calculated at 240.01 points. At 5,762.86 now, the Dow has multiplied twenty-threefold, not including the dividends investors would have earned on the stocks along the way. Now for the quiz: Can you name the 30 stocks in the Dow? (Answers on D6.)

Quiz Answers

Here are the 30 stocks that make up the Dow Jones industrial average, which turns 100 years old today (see Investment Watch, D1):

AT&T;

AlliedSignal

Alcoa

American Express

Bethlehem Steel

Boeing

Caterpillar

Chevron

Coca-Cola

Walt Disney