Dow And Jones: Wizards of Wall Street

The Dow-Jones Industrial Average is the most commonly used economic indicator in American finance. But how did the Dow-Jones Industrial Average achieve this status? What are the origins of the Dow-Jones Industrial Average? This episode of Biography examines the lives and legacy of Mr. Dow and Mr. Jones, originators of the Dow-Jones Industrial Average and the founders of the Wall Street Journal. But behind the personal stories of Dow and Jones, Biography provides an historical overview of the evolution of the Dow-Jones Industrial Average and its effects on the stock market and the financial state of America. Dow and Jones: Wizards of Wall Street would be useful for classes on American history, Economics, American Culture and Journalism. It is appropriate for middle school and high school.

• acute
• aloof
• amalgamation
• befuddled
• cataclysmic
• contentious
• demagogue
• docile
• embellish
• euphoric
• exultation
• forsook
• icon
• junk bonds
• malefactors
• permeates
• predatory
• temerity
• tempestuous
• unscathed

1. What exactly is the Dow-Jones Industrial Average? How does it indicate the economic health of the country?

2. How did the famous team of Dow and Jones become business partners?

3. What are stocks? How do stocks enable corporations to thrive and grow?

4. There is an old adage that states “necessity is the mother of invention.” How is this especially true of the service Dow and Jones provided?

5. Dow and Jones founded The Wall Street Journal, the world’s leading financial newspaper. What has been the impact of The Wall Street Journal on the economy and history of the United States in the 20th century?

6. How is the Dow-Jones Industrial Average an analytic tool for charting economic trends in the stock market?

7. External events such as war, natural disasters and political events affect the stock market and the Dow-Jones Industrial Average. How do these external events affect the market and the index?

8. What does the term “buying on margin mean?” How did buying on margin contribute the great stock market crash of 1929?

9. After the stock market crashed in 1929, the United States, and most of the world, was plunged into an eleven-year depression. How did WWII help to revitalize the American economy and pull America out of the Great Depression?

10. n the late 1980s, some stockbrokers were arrested for inside trading. What is inside trading? How did it enable some brokers to get an edge in the market and accumulate vast resources?

1. Create a timeline that charts the history of the stock market in the 20th century. Try to relate this graph with events of the 20th century. Do you see any relation?

2. Read an issue of The Wall Street Journal and discuss how this newspaper is different from other daily newspapers. What are the paper’s motives? Who is its intended audience?

Related Videos

Air Dates

• January 27, 2005