The Dow Jones and Company Dow Jones & Company was founded in 1882 by Charles Dow, Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is now the world's most vital business and financial news and information service. The DJIA is an index of 30 "blue-chip" US stocks. The Dow Jones Industrial Average tracks the stock performances of about one percent of the companies traded on the New York Stock Exchange floor. It is the oldest continuing US market index at over 100 years. It is called an "average" because it was originally computed by adding up stock prices and dividing by the number of stocks. The methodology re