NEW YORK (AFP) - Bank of America and Chevron Corporation will replace Altria Group and Honeywell International in the widely-tracked Dow Jones Industrial Average stock barometer on February 19, Dow Jones said Monday.
The changes are the first in the index's basket weighting of 30 leading companies in almost four years and will give Bank of America and Chevron more corporate visibility.
Dow Jones said in a statement that it was dropping Altria from the benchmark stock index because it had become a smaller company, while Honeywell is being replaced because it is the smallest industrial firm in the Dow based on revenue and earnings.
"We saw that the financial industry was under-represented, notwithstanding the current turbulence, and that the oil and gas industry's growing importance to the world economy called for another representative to join ExxonMobil Corp," said Marcus Brauchli, managing editor of the Wall Street Journal.
The stock index is maintained and reviewed by Journal editors.
Altria is a tobacco company while Honeywell is a diversified technology and manufacturing group.
There is no pre-determined criteria for a stock to be added or removed from the DJIA, but the index's components of 30 top stocks are usually the biggest and most successful US companies in their sector.
The Dow's overall value is based on its component companies' stock prices.
The new changes will take effect at the start of market trading on February 19.
Dow Jones and the Journal are both owned by News Corporation.
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