This is Planet Money episode (29:02 min) discusses Dow Jones industrial index, its history, and why it is an over-hyped economic indicator. After explaining how the Dow Jones industrial average is calculated, Jacob Goldstein, NPR’s economics correspondent, argues against using the Dow as any sort of serious measure of the health of the economy. Part of the reason that I post this story is because it explains what stock prices represent, a topic recently discussed in Professor Germain’s Business Associations class.