Dow Jones Industrial Average treads water ahead of Fed
- The Dow Jones shuffled in place as investors wait for the Fed’s latest rate call.
- Interest rates are broadly expected to remain unchanged, but markets await rhetoric shifts.
- Chip stocks gained ground, bolstering other indexes to all-new record highs.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) churned in the midrange as investors await the latest interest rate decision from the Federal Reserve (Fed). Some pockets of market momentum struck in the chip sector, driving the Standard & Poor’s 500 index to fresh all-time highs, before retreating ahead of the Fed’s first rate call of 2026.
The Fed is functionally locked into a no-change rate set on Wednesday. Nobody at the Fed or in the markets expects interest rates to move from their 3.5-3.75% range for January. Instead, investors are looking ahead to see whether any Fed officials will signal a faster pace of rate cuts than the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) expects.
According to the Fed’s own dot plot of interest rate expectations, Fed officials see a single rate cut in 2026 and one more in 2027. According to rate futures markets, rate traders are pricing in at least two rate cuts by the end of 2026.
Dow Jones daily chart
Dow Jones FAQs
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, one of the oldest stock market indices in the world, is compiled of the 30 most traded stocks in the US. The index is price-weighted rather than weighted by capitalization. It is calculated by summing the prices of the constituent stocks and dividing them by a factor, currently 0.152. The index was founded by Charles Dow, who also founded the Wall Street Journal. In later years it has been criticized for not being broadly representative enough because it only tracks 30 conglomerates, unlike broader indices such as the S&P 500.
Many different factors drive the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA). The aggregate performance of the component companies revealed in quarterly company earnings reports is the main one. US and global macroeconomic data also contributes as it impacts on investor sentiment. The level of interest rates, set by the Federal Reserve (Fed), also influences the DJIA as it affects the cost of credit, on which many corporations are heavily reliant. Therefore, inflation can be a major driver as well as other metrics which impact the Fed decisions.
Dow Theory is a method for identifying the primary trend of the stock market developed by Charles Dow. A key step is to compare the direction of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) and the Dow Jones Transportation Average (DJTA) and only follow trends where both are moving in the same direction. Volume is a confirmatory criteria. The theory uses elements of peak and trough analysis. Dow’s theory posits three trend phases: accumulation, when smart money starts buying or selling; public participation, when the wider public joins in; and distribution, when the smart money exits.
There are a number of ways to trade the DJIA. One is to use ETFs which allow investors to trade the DJIA as a single security, rather than having to buy shares in all 30 constituent companies. A leading example is the SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average ETF (DIA). DJIA futures contracts enable traders to speculate on the future value of the index and Options provide the right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell the index at a predetermined price in the future. Mutual funds enable investors to buy a share of a diversified portfolio of DJIA stocks thus providing exposure to the overall index.
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