It's Not JUST hysteria LH. Its real money if you are invested. But a problem is that the more people who are investing, the more the stock is worth. The Dow Jones more represents the speculative side of the market rather than any real value of investment.

Funny Joe, I had heard that explanation before and forgotten it after more recently hearing the one I put forth.

on the other hand,
A ten thousand point DO average would only mean an average share price per company of 333 dollars. a 14,000 point dow would mean an average of 500. If they are adding the splits to form one -what if you had held it since issue- equivalent stock. Its not that far fetched even now.

But the Dow is certainly odd scale since not all of the companies have the same amount of outstanding stock. Certainly some companies' stock changes affect the Dow a lot more than some others.

My question is since the sale of the Wall Street Journal and Dow Jones company, will they now call it the Murdoch Jones average or the Dow Murdoch?