<Tr> <Th> Weighting method </Th> <Td> Price - weighted </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Website </Th> <Td> www.djaverages.com </Td> </Tr> <P> The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), or simply the Dow (/ ˈdaʊ /), is a stock market index that shows how 30 large, publicly owned companies based in the United States have traded during a standard trading session in the stock market . The value of the Dow is not a weighted arithmetic mean and does not represent its component companies' market capitalization, but rather the sum of the price of one share of stock for each component company . The sum is corrected by a factor which changes whenever one of the component stocks has a stock split or stock dividend, so as to generate a consistent value for the index . </P> <P> It is the second - oldest U.S. market index after the Dow Jones Transportation Average, created by Wall Street Journal editor and Dow Jones & Company co-founder Charles Dow . Currently owned by S&P Dow Jones Indices, which is majority owned by S&P Global, it is the best known of the Dow Averages, of which the first (non-industrial) was originally published on February 16, 1885 . The averages are named after Dow and one of his business associates, statistician Edward Jones . The industrial average was first calculated on May 26, 1896 . </P>

What is one point in the stock market