Is The Dow Jones Industrial Average starting to show its age?After all, few fund managers benchmark their funds against the best-known barometer of the stock market, though some exchange traded funds (ETFs) do use it. Pundits routinely decry the Dow as being unrepresentative of the broader market for not including Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) among other reasons. Nonetheless, the Dow usually remains the first to be mentioned in media reports about the stock market, while the S&P 500, the more widely used index, comes in last.
That's why when the publisher of the Wall Street Journal, which began the index 111 years ago, makes changes, people pay attention. Dow Jones, now owned by News Corp (NYSE: NWS), today announced that Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) and Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) would replace Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO) and Honeywell International Inc. (NYSE: HON), in the Dow, the first changes to the index since April 2004.



