Dow Jones

Over its last 20 sessions DJI has moved 0.73% on a typical day, making it about as volatile as most of the indices Kinzan tracks (their median is 0.75%).

At −0.3σ, the last 24 hours have been an entirely ordinary session for DJI.

It sits near the top of its 24-hour range of 51,154.36–51,367.17, measured on hourly closes.

The New York block (13:00–22:00 UTC) did most of the work — roughly 100% of the movement over the last 24 hours.

Over the last 60 sessions of daily returns, it has moved most closely with SPX (+0.86, a very strong relationship), and most inversely to VIX (−0.66).

Market read: The Dow is struggling to find direction, pinned near its daily highs despite minimal New York movement.

What it is

Charles Dow first published his industrial average in 1896, and it remains the most recognisable name in American stock-market reporting. Today it holds just 30 blue-chip companies, selected by a committee rather than by size alone, and spanning industrials, finance, healthcare, consumer brands and technology. Its defining quirk is price weighting: a company’s influence depends on its share price, not its market value. A stock trading at a high nominal price therefore counts for more than a much larger company with a lower share price, and a stock split reduces a member’s weight. The index is maintained by S&P Dow Jones Indices using a divisor that adjusts for splits and constituent changes.

What drives it

With only thirty members and a tilt towards mature, dividend-paying firms, the Dow is generally less exposed to high-growth technology than the Nasdaq 100 and more exposed to the industrial and financial cycle. Manufacturing surveys, capital-spending trends, bank earnings and consumer health all matter. A single high-priced constituent’s earnings or guidance can move the index by more than its economic importance would suggest. Broad influences — Federal Reserve policy, bond yields and recession risk — act on it as they do on every US equity index.

How it trades through the day

The Dow is calculated during the regular US session, 09:30 to 16:00 New York time, within the New York block (13:00–22:00 UTC). Futures on the index trade on CME for most of the day, so overnight news during the Asia block (22:00–07:00 UTC) and the London block (07:00–13:00 UTC) shows up in futures ahead of the opening bell. Because it is widely quoted in the media, headline “points” moves attract attention, but the percentage change is the more comparable measure.

What it tends to move with

The Dow tends to move in the same direction as the S&P 500 and the Nasdaq 100, though it has historically outperformed them in periods favouring value and cyclical stocks. It usually moves inversely to the VIX and has shown some sensitivity to the US Dollar Index through its multinational constituents.