The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), Dow Jones, or simply the Dow is a stock market The Industrial portion of the name is largely historical, as many of the modern 30 components have little or nothing to do with To calculate the DJIA, the sum of the prices of all 30 stocks is divided by a divisor, the Dow Divisor . For example, the historical data suggest that the Dow Jones average rate of return had a compounded annual growth rate of 7.55 percent from a close of 2,002.85 31 Oct 2013 The historical data for the DJIA is a combination of four separate indices. On February 16, 1885 an index of 12 railroads and 2 industrial stocks