Charles Dow
He gave Wall Street its most vital daily number and created a language for understanding market movements.
1851–1902 (age 51)·American journalist·Birthday: November 6
Biography
Charles Dow was a Connecticut farm boy who turned financial reporting into a science. Moving to New York in the 1880s, he saw the chaotic, rumor-driven stock market and believed investors needed facts. With partners Edward Jones and Charles Bergstresser, he launched a handwritten news bulletin that evolved into The Wall Street Journal. His true legacy, however, is the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a simple arithmetic tool he devised in 1896 to cut through the noise and reveal the market's overall direction. This index didn't just report prices; it created the very concept of 'the market' as a singular entity that could be measured and analyzed. His editorials laid the groundwork for Dow Theory, a cornerstone of technical analysis that continues to influence traders more than a century after his death.
#1 When Charles Was Born
The biggest hits of 1851
Charles's Life & Times
The world at every milestone
1851Born
1856Started school
1864Became a teenager
President: Abraham Lincoln
1867Could drive
President: Andrew Johnson
1869Could vote
President: Ulysses S. Grant
1872Turned 21
President: Ulysses S. Grant
1881Turned 30
President: Chester A. Arthur
1891Turned 40
President: Benjamin Harrison
1901Turned 50
Queen Victoria dies, ending the Victorian era
President: Theodore Roosevelt
1902Died at 51
The eruption of Mount Pelee kills 30,000 in Martinique
President: Theodore Roosevelt
Key Achievements
- Co-founded Dow Jones & Company, the financial news and publishing giant, in 1882.
- Launched The Wall Street Journal in 1889, establishing a new standard for business journalism.
- Created the Dow Jones Industrial Average in 1896, the world's most famous stock market index.
- Pioneered Dow Theory, a foundational framework for analyzing market trends through price movements.
Did You Know?
He began his career as a reporter for the Springfield Daily Republican in Massachusetts.
The first Dow Jones Industrial Average, calculated manually, started at 40.94 points.
He was an editorial writer, and his market theories were compiled from his newspaper columns after his death.
He also co-founded the Dow Jones News Service, originally using runners and bicycle messengers to deliver news.
“The market is always to be considered as having three movements, all going on at the same time.”
