Market Average

What Is a Market Average?

A market average is an indexed measure of the overall price level of a given market, as defined by a specified group of stocks or other securities.

A market average computes the sum of all current values of assets in the group and then divides that by the total number of shares in the group, which may include various weighting or normalization factors.

Understanding Market Averages

A market average measurement is a simple way to evaluate the price level of a group of assets like stocks.

For example, the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA), which is a price-weighted average, covers 30 blue-chip stocks listed on the NYSE and is widely used to track overall U.S. stock market performance. It essentially takes the stock prices of its 30 components and then divides them by the "Dow divisor," which is a number less than one. The index divisor is continuously adjusted for corporate actions, such as dividend payments and stock splits.

To further muddy the waters, the components of the Dow today are not what they were when the average was founded: General Electric is the only original member still in the club, and Intel and Microsoft have superseded Union Carbide and Sears Roebuck. Despite all these caveats, the Dow is still a widely-regarded market average.

History of the DJIA: The Most Prominent Market Average

Named for founder Charles Dow and his business partner Edward Jones, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is regarded as a proxy for the broader U.S. economy. At launch, it included just 12 almost purely industrial 12 companies. The first components operated in railroads, cotton, gas, sugar, tobacco, and oil. General Electric is the only one of the original Dow components that are still a part of the index today.

As the economy changes over time, so does the composition of the index. The Dow typically makes changes when a company experiences financial distress and becomes less representative of the economy, or when a broader economic shift occurs and a change needs to be made to reflect it.

The index grew to 30 components in 1928 and has changed components a total of 51 times. The first change came just three months after the index was launched. In 1932, eight stocks within the DJIA were replaced. However, during this change, the Coca-Cola Company and Procter & Gamble Co. were added to the index, two stocks that are still part of the DJIA in 2018.