Today marks, in many ways, the birthday of my profession. On May 26, 1896, Charles Dow first published a list of 12 industrial companies, combining their prices in an index for the first public index of the stock market. Note that phrase, because a standard of measurement—an index—was the necessary first step in transforming a market of stocks (i.e., individual companies) into a stock market. Before, we had a bunch of trees, and it was hard for investors to see the forest. Dow put the forest front and center with his index.
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