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The history of the Dow Jones industrial average The history of the Dow Jones industrial average: The Dow Jones industrial average passed its intraday record high March 5. From the Great Depression to the Great Recession, here’s a look back at the storied history of the index.
The Dow Jones industrial average is one of several market indexes created by Dow Jones Co. co-founder Charles Dow (pictured). It is named after Dow and statistician Edward Jones and includes the stocks of 30 large U.S. companies.
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AP
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The Dow was originally set up to gauge the well-being of the industrial sector, but these days few of the 30 component stocks have to do with heavy industry. When the Dow was created in 1896, it contained only 12 stocks, including American Cotton, American Sugar and American Tobacco. The Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Co. was also part of the original 12 but was later bought by U.S. Steel, of which the Edgar Thomson Steel Works is pictured.
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AP
Crowds stand across Wall Street from the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 24, 1929, when collapse of the market was reported due to heavy trading. During the great stock market crash of that year, the worst ever in U.S. history, the Dow Jones industrials lost 13 percent in one day.
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AP
The Dow closed above 5,000 for the first time Nov. 21, 1995. On May 3, 1999, it hit another milestone: its first close above the 11,000 mark. The the 1990s, the Dow gained an astounding 315 percent.
Kathy Willens
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AP
A firefighter moves through piles of debris at the site of the World Trade Center in New York after the towers fell in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. All trading on financial markets was suspended for several days after the attacks. The third largest single-day point drop for the Dow occurred on Sept. 17, 2001, the first day of trading.
Graham Morrison
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AP
A floor trader monitors a computer screen while working at the New York Stock Exchange. On October 11, 2007, the Dow Jones industrial average hit its intraday trading record of 14,198.10 points. Stocks surged that day after the Fed minutes hinted that the central bank was going to continue to cut interest rates, the Associated Press reported.
Jin Lee
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Bloomberg News
A trader works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Sept. 15, 2008. The Dow Jones industrial average was down 293 points at 11:53 a.m., up from a more than 300 point decline soon after the morning bell. Earlier that day Lehman Brothers, the nation's fourth-largest investment firm, announced that it would file for bankruptcy. The Dow ended up falling 504.48 points that day. This was just the beginning of a tumultuous ride for the Dow that year.
Spencer Platt
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Getty Images
Trader Michael Kilkenny, right, sits at a post after the close of trading on Sept. 29, 2008. Wall Street's worst fears came to pass that day, when the government's financial bailout plan failed in Congress and stocks plunged precipitously, hurtling the Dow Jones industrials down 777.68, or 6.98 percent to 10,365.45, in their largest one-day point drop ever.
Richard Drew
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AP
Specialists Michael Scavone, left, and Michael Sollitto react on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange on Oct. 14, 2009, as the Dow Jones Industrial Average crosses 10,000 for the first time in a year.
Richard Drew
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AP
On Feb. 1, 2013, a screen on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange shows the Dow Jones industrial average above 14,000 for the first time since October 2007. Evidence that the U.S. economic recovery is firmly on track drove markets higher that day, adding to the cheer from good economic indicators out of Europe.
Richard Drew
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AP
The current composition of the Dow Jones industrial average includes oil companies such as Chevron, banking giants such as Bank of America, retailer Walmart and technology powerhouses Cisco, Hewlett-Packard and Intel.
Getty, AP and Reuters
Employees at the General Electric health-care unit's production facility in Beijing assemble medical magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) devices. General Electric is the only stock from the original 12 that still exists on the Dow.
Nelson Ching
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Bloomberg
A board displays the Dow Jones Industrial average after the close at the New York Stock Exchange, March 4, 2013. In intraday trading, the Dow passed its all-time high Tuesday morning, despite fears that automatic spending cuts contained in the sequester could hamper economic growth.
Brendan McDermid
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Reuters
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