These stocks have the same influence on the Dow as the seventeen lowest priced companies in the Dow. To put this into perspective these five companies have a market capitalization of $540 billion while the 17 companies with the lowest prices in the Dow have a market capitalization of over $1.7 trillion. The companies which do not count as much in the make up of the Dow include J.P Morgan and GE among many others. A company such as GE has very little influence in the Dow despite being one of America's largest companies.
Allan Edwards the CEO of The Markets Are Open recommended switching the Dow from a price weighted index to that of market capitalization. He said "I Like history but I also don't like CAT having over 3 times the influence as GE." Edwards was referring to the fact Caterpillar stock is more than 3 times as influential in the Dow as GE. The Dow Jones current system uses a Dow Divisor which is approximately 8, which is multiplied by the price of each stock, then added up to get the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
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