A Year in the Stock Market - Dow Jones Industrial Average
I dig financial websites, like Yahoo!'s or Google's, where you can play with stock pricing charts, setting various time frames and comparing companies' performances. I was studying the recent market collapse and noticed that a bunch of stocks had their record highs set on intraday after October 11th, 2007. I noticed that magic time was the record high for the DOW and S&P. It was also the second highest price the Nasdaq has ever reached.That was a year ago, before the beginning of the end of the world. For my own kicks, I pulled out those intraday prices and compared them to how the market closed on Friday, October 10, 2008. I focused on the Dow Jones Industrial Average because there are only 30 companies there to analyze. The results are interesting enough that I thought I should share with HAWT readers.
Read on to see what I do with my free time.
Now, ideally, I'd compare stock prices and market capitalization to see how changes in stock price altered the overall value of the company, but it's almost impossible to find past market capitalization data. Alas, I had to settle for stock prices only.
Here are the thirty companies that currently comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average, along with their price interday 10/11/2007, close 10/10/2008 and the percent drop between them.
I've sorted the data in order of descending calamity, from "hair-on-fire" to "oh, well." So, General Motors is the winner here, having had its stock price plummet an insane 88% in one year. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, is the only company with a gain. (Apparently, when people don't have money, they buy things on the cheap.)
The thirty companies in the Dow Jones represent the largest and most widely held public companies in the U.S. The level of the Dow Jones, therefore, is a measure of the U.S. economic health. In the time frame above, the stocks currently in the Dow Jones fell almost 40%. Holy. Moly.
In the past year, 3 companies were taken off the Dow Jones.
Scan those numbers above, though. 62% drop at American Express. 73% at Citigroup. 39% at Intel. Now think of all the people (might be you) who invested stock in these companies last year. This, HAWTreaders, is an economic crisis.
Here are the thirty companies that currently comprise the Dow Jones Industrial Average, along with their price interday 10/11/2007, close 10/10/2008 and the percent drop between them.
I've sorted the data in order of descending calamity, from "hair-on-fire" to "oh, well." So, General Motors is the winner here, having had its stock price plummet an insane 88% in one year. Wal-Mart, on the other hand, is the only company with a gain. (Apparently, when people don't have money, they buy things on the cheap.)The thirty companies in the Dow Jones represent the largest and most widely held public companies in the U.S. The level of the Dow Jones, therefore, is a measure of the U.S. economic health. In the time frame above, the stocks currently in the Dow Jones fell almost 40%. Holy. Moly.
In the past year, 3 companies were taken off the Dow Jones.
- 09/22/08: AIG replaced by Kraft Foods on because AIG is not really publicly-owned anymore. More like tax-payer-owned. In this year, AIG has gone from about 69 to 2.5, a loss of about 96%.
- 02/11/08: Bank of America Corp. and Chevron Corp. replaced Altria Group, Inc., and Honeywell International, Inc. Altria has no apples-to-apples stock analysis because it spun off companies, but Honeywell lost approximately 51% in stock price.
Scan those numbers above, though. 62% drop at American Express. 73% at Citigroup. 39% at Intel. Now think of all the people (might be you) who invested stock in these companies last year. This, HAWTreaders, is an economic crisis.
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I'd STILL trade my stock in HAWTaction for any of those economic disasters.
I'm the best blogger, ever.
- JLF
Think you have the column headrs backward
Yyeeeeeeeahhh.... Good catch, Jess. I'm still dizzy/winded from the Obama endorsement.
What has happened to Sirius over the past year?
Oh no I didn't! Don't go there girl!
Ouch. You did go there, Jason, and I pause to acknowledge I must be the only person in the world who still owns Sirius/XM stock. I think I can trade in 1,000 stocks for a set of chopsticks at this point.
If you bring the chopsticks, I'll trade in my 5,000 shares and order some General Tso's.