DOW JONES INDUSTRIAL AVERAGE

This is the best known U.S. index of stocks. It contains 30 stocks that trade on the New York Stock Exchange . The Dow, as it is called, is a barometer of how shares of the largest U.S. companies are performing. There are hundreds of investment indexes around the world for stocks , bonds , currencies and commodities . The Dow is a price-weighted average of 30 actively traded blue chip stocks, primarily industrials.