Scott Gurvey

Business reporters can get up to speed on market indexes with a backgrounder on the Dow and S&PIn my first Financial Market Reporting piece, I complained that many reporters make casual reference to “the market” without specifying what they mean. Usually, I wrote, they mean the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which I called the “best known” stock market measure. The DJIA is just one of a multitude of stock market indexes that pop up in virtually every discussion of the markets, including reports evaluating individual stocks and other investment vehicles. So they warrant a closer look.

The first index

The DJIA was not the first stock market index. It was not even the first index created by Charles Dow. In 1880 Dow, who was 29 years old, moved to New York and got a job at the Kieman Wall Street Financial News Bureau, which furnished financial news to banks and brokerages. In those days there was a lot of “fake” news, designed to tout companies and their stocks. But the Kieman service had a reputation for sticking to the facts.

Dow figured if one responsible news service could succeed there was room for more, and with a fellow reporter, Edward Jones, founded Dow, Jones & Company. The pair produced newsletters and summaries of financial news, which they delivered to financial institutions and investors. Their “Customer’s Afternoon Letter” quickly grew to have more than 1,000 subscribers.

Continues at businessjournalism.org….