"You just have to take the figures given and relate them to what they have been"--of course, the problem with this is that the stocks included in the Dow change--

AIG, for instance, was removed from the index just the other day, (replaced by Kraft, which is puzzling)--beyond that, most of the stocks that comprise the index have been added relatively recently, and only one stock, GE, was on the original index. So when you compare the index over time, what are you really comparing?