Megacap growth stocks are making an impact on traditionally blue-chip indexes like the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average includes 30 industry-leading U.S. companies from a variety of sectors. Despite having far fewer components than the S&P 500 or Nasdaq Composite, the Dow remains one of the most widely followed stock market indexes — acting as a representative democracy, if you will, of the broader market.
The composition of the Dow has evolved in lockstep with the U.S. economy. Today, the most heavily represented sectors in the Dow aren’t its namesake industrials, but financials and technology.
The Dow has also been surprisingly flexible as of late. Over the last five years, six of its 30 components have changed. Among the adjustments, Salesforce swapped places with ExxonMobil, Nvidia replaced Intel, and Amazon switched with Walgreens Boots Alliance.
The current, more tech-focused Dow includes four of the “Ten Titans” — Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple. The Ten Titans are Wall Street’s largest growth stocks by market cap — making up a combined 38% of the value of the S&P 500. The six that are not members of the Dow — at least, not yet — are Alphabet (GOOG 0.56%) (GOOGL 0.63%), Meta Platforms (META -1.69%), Broadcom (AVGO -3.70%), Tesla (TSLA -3.45%), Oracle (ORCL -5.97%), and Netflix (NFLX -1.87%).
Here’s a potential pathway for all the Titans to join the Dow, why some candidates are more likely to achieve inclusion than others, and why the venerable index should continue to evolve to better represent the industries that are driving growth in the U.S. economy.
Image source: Getty Images.
Dow housekeeping
One key difference between the Dow and indexes like the S&P 500 or Nasdaq Composite is that the Dow is price weighted: The nominal price of a company’s stock, rather than its market cap, dictates that company’s weight in the Dow. This structural distinction is why Ten Titans stocks such as Nvidia, Amazon, Microsoft, and Apple can be included in the Dow without dominating the index. The price-weighted structure isn’t perfect, but it does a good job of preventing the index’s behavior from being overly influenced by a handful of names.
If a new stock were to get added to the Dow when its share price was too high, it would disrupt the price-weighted structure. That’s something the committee in charge of the index avoids. Before being added to the Dow, Amazon and Nvidia underwent stock splits.
Today, the median Dow stock trades at around $227 per share, and the highest-priced component, Goldman Sachs, trades at roughly $739 per share, so it’s safe to say a company would need to be within that range or even below it to be added to the Dow. In the case of Nvidia, the company last split its stock 10-for-1 in June 2024. That split put Nvidia into the lower-priced range for Dow companies, but its stock has gone up since then, and now, its price is closer to the median.
Alphabet, Broadcom, Tesla, and Oracle are all trading at reasonable prices where they won’t have to split their stocks to be considered for the Dow. But Meta Platforms would probably have to do a 3-for-1 split, and Netflix would have to do at least a 5-for-1 split to be considered.
Dow musical chairs
Assuming the need for stock splits isn’t an impediment, here are my picks for the most reasonable current Dow components for the remaining six Titans to replace.
|
Dow Candidate |
Dow Deletion |
|---|---|
|
Alphabet |
Verizon Communications |
|
Meta Platforms |
Honeywell International |
|
Netflix |
Walt Disney |
|
Broadcom |
Cisco Systems |
|
Oracle |
International Business Machines |
|
Tesla |
Nike |
By far the Dow’s most glaring flaw is how underrepresented the communication services sector is in it. The only communication stocks in the index today are Verizon Communications and Walt Disney. The sector makes up just 2.3% of the Dow’s value, but a whopping 9.9% of the S&P 500.
Alphabet for Verizon
No company deserves to be added to the Dow more than Alphabet. And Verizon, being the lowest weighted Dow component, is the perfect candidate for deletion.
Alphabet offers tech exposure through its growing cloud business, but also brings a key media play in YouTube. Chatbots are changing the way users interact with information, but Google remains the undisputed leader in internet search. And Alphabet’s Gemini chatbot, which powers AI overviews in Google Search, is experiencing a surge in adoption.
Meta for Honeywell
If Alphabet is added, I doubt Meta would be before 2030. But if it were, my out-of-left-field pick for it to replace would be manufacturing and tech conglomerate Honeywell. That may seem particularly unlikely given that Honeywell itself was only added in 2020, when it replaced Raytheon Technologies, now RTX.
Yet Honeywell is splitting into three separate publicly traded companies by the end of next year. The Dow Jones will likely either pick the automation business or the aerospace business to remain in the index. But with Boeing already a component, it may make sense to replace Honeywell altogether.
Netflix for Disney
Netflix for Disney would mark the third communications sector shakeup on this list. Therefore, it’s highly unlikely that it will happen, especially if Alphabet and Meta are added to the Dow first. While Netflix is the undisputed leader in streaming, Disney brings a lot more to the table, representing a broader range of the economy, including theatrical releases, its growing cruise line, merchandise, and, most importantly, its parks.
The results of the company’s “Experiences” division capture consumer discretionary spending and travel, making Disney an excellent Dow stock. That being said, if Netflix were to get added, Disney is the most likely stock for it to replace — especially considering that Netflix’s stock performance has trounced Disney’s over the past decade.
Broadcom for Cisco
My second-highest conviction pick would be for Broadcom to replace Cisco Systems. Yes, Nvidia already provides significant semiconductor exposure to the Dow. However, Nvidia is primarily a bet on AI data centers. Broadcom is a far more diversified business, with networking equipment, security solutions, infrastructure software, and hardware for data centers, and a virtualization business supported by its 2023 acquisition of VMware. Broadcom also makes AI accelerator chips and application-specific integrated circuits for AI functions.
There’s a decent amount of overlap between Broadcom and Cisco, especially on the cybersecurity and networking front. It’s also worth mentioning that Broadcom has paid and raised its dividend at a rapid rate for 14 straight years. Given that Cisco has a high yield, replacing it with another dividend-paying tech stock seems logical.
Oracle for IBM
Similar to a Broadcom-for-Cisco swap, trading Oracle for International Business Machines would replace a Dow veteran with a much larger market-cap tech company. Oracle and IBM are both predominantly enterprise-focused companies with growing cloud businesses.
That said, Oracle’s approach to the cloud is distinctly different from IBM’s, with Oracle Cloud Infrastructure (OCI) ideally suited for working with its database services. OCI works well within the Oracle ecosystem, although the company offers multi-cloud solutions via partnerships with Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, and Google Cloud.
IBM is more flexible. IBM also has a much stronger track record in quantum computing and AI, whereas Oracle is a newcomer to those arenas. And IBM isn’t as aggressive from a capital expenditure standpoint, whereas Oracle is pouring investments into growing its AI infrastructure and even taking on debt to accelerate its growth plans.
Oracle and IBM are both solid examples of legacy tech companies that are revolutionizing their business models to capitalize on the AI trend. IBM is doing a lot right to stay in the Dow, making it unlikely that Oracle will be added to the index anytime soon.
Tesla for Nike
This pick is a bit out there, similar to Meta replacing Honeywell. But if the committee adds Tesla to the Dow, it might make sense for it to make room for it by dropping a consumer discretionary stock like Nike.
When Amazon replaced Walgreens, it boosted the representation of e-commerce in the Dow. Walmart is also a Dow component, bringing retail and e-commerce. If Disney remains in the Dow, it adds more consumer discretionary exposure — paving the way for Tesla’s inclusion.
It’s also worth mentioning that there are no automakers in the Dow currently, although General Motors was at one time a component. Given that Tesla is the most valuable automaker in the world and brings exposure to robotics and renewable energy, the idea of adding it to the Dow isn’t as far-fetched as it may seem at first glance.
The modern blue-chip company
Speculating about how the Dow’s composition could change over the coming years is more than just an intellectual exercise. It gets at the core of what’s driving the stock market and why the Dow has underperformed the S&P 500 and Nasdaq by a wide margin over the past decade.
By no means should the Dow overhaul its holdings overnight. But it won’t be surprising if at least a few more of the Ten Titans — namely Alphabet and Broadcom — get added to the index between now and 2030.
